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Aristodemocracy 

Military Preparedness 

and 

The Peace of the World 



By 

Sir Charles Waldstein 



New York 

Paget Literary Agency 

1916 



CL^'^h^-} 



.W-S5" 



COPYRIGHT, 1916 

BY 

SIR CHARLES WALDSTEIN 



AU(I-4I316 



Preface to American Edition 

In July 1898 I delivered, at the Imperial Insti- 
tute, London, Lord Rosebery in the chair, an ad- 
dress on the English-Speaking Brotherhood. In 
an abridged form this appeared as an article, in 
August 1898, in the North American Review. To 
this address was added another essay; and both 
were published in book-form in 1899 under the 
title The Expansion of Western Ideals amd the 
World's Peace. 

Similar convictions had been held by me and 
expressed in various forms as far back as 1874, 
when, as an American student at Heidelberg, I 
read a paper on the Staatsziueck before the polit- 
ical society of that University, the late Professor 
Blunt schli being present. 

Many of the views expressed in the present 
book, especially those which advocate the institu- 
tion of an International Court with power to en- 
force its decisions, were already brought forward 
in my book on The Expansion of Western Ideals 
and the World's Peace. 

I caimot refrain from quoting the opinions on 
the views set forth in that book by two great Am- 
ericans, fundamentally opposed in their interpre- 
tation of American Foreign Policy as were the 
late Charles Eliot Norton and John Hay, — the 
one a representative of the best thought, culture 
and taste and the highest type of the American 
gentleman, the other, possessing similar qualities, 
in my opinion the greatest American statesman of 
modem times, whose action in reference to China 
formulated the most important principle of inter- 



national politics for the future peace of the world. 

Charles Norton wrote from Cambridge, Mass. 
on Nov. 18, 1899 (see Letters of Charles i^jliot 
Norton, 1913, Vol. 11, p; 290) "I have read your 
little volume on the Expansion of Western Ideals 
and the World's Peace with great interest. As 
you are aware, your position and my own differ 
on the fundamental question which underlies your 
essays. But I read with genuine sympathy your 
very able statement of your own views. * * * 
Your presentation of the ImperiaUstic position 
has this great value at least, that it shows that 
men who hold it are cherishing ideals which, if 
they can be fulfilled, will make the course on 
which America has entered less disastrous than 
we who do not hold them fear. * * * " 

John Hay wrote from the Department of State, 
Wasliington, Oct. 21, 1899 (the date is wrongly 
printed as 1897) [Letters of John Hay and Ex- 
tracts from Diary, printed (not published) in 
Washington, 1908, Vol. Ill, p. 100.] "Last night 
for the first time since your book (The Expansion 
of Western Ideals) arrived, I found a quiet hour 
to read it and I must thank you most sincerely for 
a great pleasure. It is a charming treatise, hand- 
ling a grave subject with an elevation and grace of 
style which makes it as agreeable to read, as it is 
weighty and important in substance. What can 
be the matter with poor dear S — , who set forth 
at C — the other day this preposterous program : 

1. Surrender to Aguinaldo. 

2. Make the other tribes surrender to him. 

3. Fight any nation he quarrels with. 

I think our good friends are wiser when they 
abuse us for what we do, than when they try to 
say what ought to be done. I wish you would lend 



some of your wisdom to certain of our German 
friends who seem to think that peace with Eng- 
land means war with Germany. * * * " 

I make bold to express my convictions that, 
were Charles Norton alive now, in view of the 
catastrophe brought upon the world by Prussian 
Militarism, he would not have remained a Paci- 
fist. He, as well as John Hay, would have urged 
upon their fellow-countrymen the need of Military 
Preparedness and the duty of each free citizen to 
defend his country against the danger to the main- 
tenance of its independence and of the ideals of 
every free country. 

Military Preparedness and National Service in 
no way mean Militarism. They are the only means 
of combating Militarism when it attacks the 
Peace-Lovers — No International Police existing — 
as arming against armed burglars who threaten 
the home — no effective Police Protection being 
available — does not mean that its occupants are 
not law-abiding citizens. It is a glaring fallacy 
to maintain that national military service is in- 
compatible with democratic institutions. Past 
history and republican France of to-day proce the 
contrary. Even the true socialist impresses its 
justification and necessity. I recommend all who 
doubt this truth to read the first and last three 
chapters of the book on L'Armee Noiwelle by 
Jaurez — one of the greatest and noblest men of 
our age. 

When we are secure against the active danger 
of Prussian Militarism, which threatens the very 
existence of national freedom for the democratic 
world, then we must revise fundamentally the 
morals of the civilized world to ensure lasting 
Peace and Progress. C. W. 

May, 1916. 5 



PREFACE 

This Essay is not the work of a laudator tem- 
poris acti. In spite of its title it is in no way 
reactionary or romantic in spirit. It is not meant 
to advocate a return to conditions of the past, 
but, on the contrary, emphatically to prepare for 
the future a new state of things responding to the 
needs of an advancing age. 

There is one possible misunderstanding which 
I wish above all things to avoid. 

Though the book is a protest against war and 
maintains the possibility — even the necessity — of 
international peace in the future, and though it 
is directed against militarism as the arch-enemy 
of humanity, I firmly hold that the question of 
peace is not to be obtruded on the consciousness 
of our people actually engaged in a desperate 
struggle which requires the concentration of all 
the energy the nation possesses upon the fight 
itself. As long as the war lasts all ''Pacifist" 
agitation is out of place. We must first win this 
war. The nation must even be prepared to sub- 
stitute conscription for our voluntary system 
which has served us so well in the past. 

Even when this war is over our military pre- 
paredness to meet our foes must not be relaxed 
or weakened, unless some International Court, 
backed by Pov.er, such as is advocated in this 
Essay is established. Not even a European alli- 
ance will take its place. The more we read past 
history, and even in the light of the experiences 
of the working of alliance under the constraining 



influences of a common enemy in the field, the 
less faith can we have in the security of such 
alliances. Only such a definite organisation as 
the one advocated in this Essay will justify dis- 
armament. 

Meanwhile the British Empire will have to in- 
crease its military strength, and above all retain 
unimpaired its Command of the Sea. The United 
States will no doubt be bound to follow the ex- 
ample of military and naval preparedness, until 
the blessed day has arrived when interest, reason 
and justice will lead to an efficient safeguarding 
of international peace. By that time the political 
consciousness of the whole world will probably 
be greatly altered, mainly owing to the results of 
this war. 

This War will prove to be the Swan-Song of the 
older conception of Nationality; for it is this 
misconception of Nationality which has produced 
it. Ultimately a new conception of Nationality 
and Internationality will be ushered in, in which 
loyalty to the narrower relations will in no way 
prevent loyalty to the wider. It will be the Era 
of Patriotic Internationalism. Not many years 
ago, as hmnan history goes, the Scotsman, for in- 
stance, could not have conceived it possible that he 
could have loyally upheld the interests of a great 
British Empire even at the sacrifice of Scottish 
local or personal interests, as he is now prepared 
to do. The same will be true as regards the wider 
international unit of the future in its relation 
to the nations of today. 

In some respects the actual events of this war 
have made the realisation of such a scheme more 
remote than in the period preceding it. I am 
not so much alluding to the attitude of the Ger- 

8 



man belligerents, as to that of the Administration 
of the United States of America. 

One of the greatest — perhaps the greatest — op- 
portunity in history to affect the course of hu- 
manity towards the attainments of highest good 
ever placed within the reach of a few individuals 
by means of one definite action has been lost by 
them. 

I pass no judgment upon the action of Presi- 
dent Wilson's Administration in refraining from 
active intervention in the war, nor upon the ques- 
tion how far national honour was involved, nor 
yet how far it is the duty of nations to protect 
their honour at all costs. But a paramount duty 
to the cause of humanity has been shirked from 
the very outset with the most disastrous results. 
Had it been fulfilled, it might have marked a 
great epoch in the history of humanity. It was 
their duty to protest against every clear and 
flagrant violation of international law and the de- 
cisions of the Hague Convention to which the 
United States was a signatory. 

Had the United States thus protested against 
the action of Germany in Belgium, the numerous 
and undoubted contraventions of these laws and 
decisions in the bombardment of unfortified toAvns 
by ordinance or aircraft, the sinking of peaceful 
merchant men, etc., etc., a new era might have 
been initiated. Such a protest need not have been 
followed by forceful intervention, and might have 
remained purely academic and platonic; but 
made, it ought to have been. The sinking of 
passenger — and merchant — vessels ought not to 
have evoked protest only on the ground of their 
belonging to the United States or carrying Amer- 
ican goods or passengers, but purely and wholly 

9 



on the ground that the United States was a co- 
signatory of the Hague Convention. The United 
States, as the only great neutral power remain- 
ing, would have formed the center to which the 
combined opinion and support of all the numerous 
smaller and less powerful neutral states — also 
co-signatories of the Hague Convention — would 
have been drawn; thus forming a imited expres- 
sion of civilised opinion and moral force in the 
world. It would perhaps only have formed a 
nucelus to a germ-cell of internaitional justice 
and peace ; but out of this germ a great and sturdy 
organic body of civilised opinion and power might 
subsequently have developed. Such action has 
not been taken. The great world-opportunity has 
been lost. The cause of human peace has not been 
advanced. Worse than that: the sin of omission 
has had the positive effect of retarding the real- 
isation of the just hope of ci\dlised humanity 
formed before this war, and has confirmed the 
divorce between right and might for years to 
come. 

This book was written during the winter and 
spring of 1914 to 1915. Events subsequent to that 
date have not necessitated the making of any 
essential alterations or additions. Where such ad- 
ditions are made they are made in footnotes. 

My sincere thanks are due to my friend and col- 
league, Dr. J. B. Bury, Fellow of King's College, 
and Regius Professor of History in the University 
of Cambridge, as well as to my wife, for numerous 
suggestions and corrections. 



10 



From the Great War 

Back to Moses, Christ 
and Plato 

PART I 
The Disease of War and Its Cure 

Introduction 

What is the real cause of this war? How can 
we find the true diagnosis of the disease which 
has culminated in this dissolvent crisis, threaten- 
ing the health and normal progress of modern 
civilisation? Some — in fact the vast majority, not 
only of those concerned, but of neutrals as well, — 
say it is to be found in the militaristic aggression 
of Germany; others in the steady pursuit of an 
end, perhaps more remote, of the Pan-Slav 
domination by Russia. Be it the one or the other, 
or both, the fact remains that Austria, Turkey, 
France and England, prospectively Italy and the 
Balkan States as well, are all concerned. It takes 
two or more to make a quarrel. That others 
should have joined in this internecine war is only 
partially explained (it is but a moral ** sympto- 
matic diagnosis" of the disease) by pointing to 
the various combinations of alliance and ententes, 
to avowed or secret treaties, to the various moves 
on the diplomatic chessboard of Europe during 

11 



the last few generations, or by the consideration 
of such phrases as the ''European Balance of 
Power," of the spread of colonisaition, commerce 
and trade, and of endless proximate causes, such 
as, especially, the influence of the armament in- 
dustry. The moral consciousness of the vast ma- 
jority of the population of the civilised nations 
of the West is directly opposed to this barbarous, 
irrational, immoral arbitrament of right by the 
uncertain, fatuous, grotesquely stupid appeal to 
the brute forces of savagery and destruction, how- 
ever much these be raised to the sphere of scien- 
tific forethought and mechanical ingenuity, how- 
ever much — to use the happy phrase of the- 
French Ambassador in London — ''barbarism may 
have bedecked itself with the showy attributes of 
intellectual pedantry. ' ' 

To the vast majority of the civilian population 
(with the exception perhaps of professional 
soldiers and those directly dependent for their 
living upon war or the prospect of war) war is 
not only a survival of barbarism and savagery, 
but an absurdity. Though all recognise the right 
of self-defence, the duty to protect home and 
family and the community in which they live, to 
defend honour and ideals, none who are sane and 
sincere would admit, that one must slay those 
who are not endangering one's life, and w^hose 
aims and ideals are practically the same as one's 
own. To create a state in which the whole life 
of the community is subordinated to the one great 
aim of slaying neighbors generally related by 
race, religion, and ideals; and with whom one 
had previously lived in friendly intercourse; to 
do this by subverting all principles of morals, all 

12 



,'standards of right and wrong, of fair dealing, of 
honor, of chivalry and of generosity, on which 
life in times of peace has been based, is not only 
cruel and immoral, but grossly stupid and insane. 
And yet, in spite of these views held by all sane 
people, such a war is actually raging: families 
are bereft of fathers, sons and brothers; misery 
penetrates into all layers of society in every civil- 
ised country in Europe ; the rule of morality and 
sanity is suspended for the time; millions of 
pounds a day are expended without any economic 
return, dissolved into empty space — sums which 
would in one month, one week and even in one 
day have advanced social reforms, alleviated 
suffering and misery of the poor and feeble, pro- 
vided for Science and Art and all spiritual im- 
provements, sums which in times of peace can 
never be appropriated to such uses for the wel- 
fare of humanity for ages to come. Was there 
ever such a tragic paradox, such glaring contra- 
diction between conviction and actual profession, 
between faith and action, between what we be- 
lieve and what we do? 

How came modem civilisation to end in such 
a paradox? For the true answer to this question 
we must consider, not only the direct actions of 
Germany and Russia, but also the less direct in- 
ternational policy of all the other civilised na- 
tions; it is to be found much deeper down and 
much further afield in the moral state of national, 
social and individual life within all the peoples 
of the Western world. 

I shall endeavor to show that the real cause, the 
real "etiology" of this universal disease, is to 
be found in the fact, that either we have no effi- 
cient common ideals or else that we have false 

1;3 



ideals; prejudices and one-sided figments of 
diseased or unbalanced brains, which we consider 
ideals, when in realifty they are the outcome of 
brutal and lower instincts. And furthermore, it is 
to be found in the undeniable fact, that the modem 
world has no Faith, no Religion, no clearly adopt- 
ed higher code of ideal striving in which we be- 
lieve whole-heartedly, and which will not only lead 
us on to great things, noble enterprise, complete 
self-sacrifice, but will also regulate our actions 
even in the smallest demands of daily life ; moral 
standards which are in complete harmony with 
the firmly established and clearly recognised 
faith in such unassailable ideals, intense and per- 
vasive and capable of resisting every onslaught 
of doubt or scepticism even in the smallest con- 
stituent elements of our wider faith. 

What is needed, above all, is to reconstitute 
our faith, so that it should have the power to 
guide and to control our actions in every aspect 
of life, unfailingly, as in bygone days, there was 
complete harmony between what people believed 
and professed and what they considered the right 
thing to do. 

It is my object in this essay to show that for 
want of ideals and of religious faith, truly ex- 
pressive of our best thought and of the civilised 
conditions of modern life, is ultimately to be found 
the true cause of this sudden and universal crisis 
in European history. It is also my object to 
endeavour in all humility at least to indicate the 
direction in which the reconstitution of our ideals 
and the establishment of an effective Faith for 
the future may be found. 



14 



CHAPTER I 

The Immediate Causes of the War. The Domi- 
nance OF German Sterberthum and 
Alldeutsche Militarism 

Immediately after that most acute crisis in tlie 
relations between England and Germany in 1911, 
when the railway strike in England threatened 
to develop into a general strike, paralysing trade 
and communications throughout the British Isles, 
and this critical moment was seized by Germany, 
through the Agadir incident, nearly to provoke a 
war, I had a most interesting and deeply signifi- 
cant conversation with one of the leading German 
statesmen in England. I am firmly convinced 
that he was not only a most honourable man, who 
combined an intense and loyal patriotism with 
high ideals for humanity as a whole, but was also 
truly and sincerely an Anglophile, anxious to 
maintain cordial relations between Germany and 
Great Britain, two nations whose vocation in his- 
tory it was jointly to advance the cause of civil- 
isation. Besides ourselves there was present one 
other person deeply and intimately concerned in 
adjusting labour-disputes and thoroughly ac- 
quainted with labour difficulties all over the 
world. The crisis threatening the maintenance 
of peace between Germany and England had by 
that time practically passed and our own labour 
troubles were on the way to final settlement. My 
friend, the authority on labour questions, had just 
informed us that there were signs of a threat of 

15 



similar troubles in one of the continental coun- 
tries, and dwelt upon the sympathetic responsive- 
ness of every country to the strikes and labour 
troubles of their neighbours. He predicted that 
this responsiveness would grow and might lead to 
more thoroughly organised international labour 
movements. 

It was then that I ventured to express my con- 
viction as regards the possibility of a great, if 
not a universal, war in the future. To me it then 
appeared — and I endeavoured to formulate my 
views — that the future history of civilisation de- 
pended on the relative rapidity in progress and 
realisability of iwo opposed movements and 
aims, held by the two chief contending forces and 
camps : the peaceful workers in the world and the 
militarists. It was entirely a question which of 
the opposed purposes held by the two forces de- 
termining the fate of the world would arrive at 
fruition first: Whether militarism — which made 
for war — or true democracy — the people realising 
its own power and conscious, not only of its inter- 
ests, but its ideals — which made for peace, would 
win the day. The fate of the world hung upon 
the question of time as to which of these two 
forces would realise itself first in power and 
organisation so as to impose its aims upon the 
world. Since the general strike, though abortive 
for the time, had been resorted to in St. Peters- 
burg in 1905, the labour men throughout the 
world had realised the power in their hands to 
decide eventually upon war or peace; and even 
though war be declared by any country, to make 
it impossible for any government to wage it. 
The labour parties all over the M^orld were be- 
coming internationalised, as capital on its side 

16 



was more and more effectually internationalised. 
Moreover, it was equally manifest to me, that the 
several governments and military authorities 
were beginning to realise this fact of primary 
importance. It therefore appeared to me that 
in the immediate future it was all a question as 
to whether the labour men (the practical, not the 
theoretical pacifists) would arrive at the realisa- 
tion of their power before the militarists had 
forced a war upon us, or whether the military 
powers would anticipate this result and, within 
the next few years would force a war upon the 
world. If they delayed in their purpose, and 
even a few more years were to pass without a 
conflict, the world would no longer tolerate such 
a war, and some form of permanent peace— 
though not necessarily peace from internal and 
wider social revolutions— would be ensured. 
What I feared was, that those convinced of the 
need for war and those interested in the main- 
tenance of armies and military prestige and all 
that it implied, would anticipate events in the 
undisturbed development of social forces and 
would precipitate a war upon us. My German 
diplomatic friend listened attentively, and for an 
answer, nodding his head with a suggestion of 
consent and approval simply and with manifest 
reticence remarked: ''Sie honnen nicJit unrecJit 
hah 671" (You may not be wrong). 

Now German militarism has won the day and 
has brought about this disastrous war — more dis- 
asterous than any the world has yet seen. Not 
wishing to delay war (the possibility of which in 
the future thus hung in the balance) any longer 
than necessary, and deeming the autunm of 1914 
the most propitious moment for the coincidence 

17 



and confluence of many factors favourable to 
German aggression, war was declared, and was 
forced upon Europe at exactly that date. It is 
one of the doctrines, openly admitted by the 
German war-party, that the reasons for a decla- 
ration of war, if they do not manifestly exist, 
can always be created. This is borne out by past 
history, and is clearly put by Nippold in his book 
on German Chauvinism^ when he wrote in 1913: 
*'The quintessence of their (the German Chauv- 
inists) doctrine is always the same: A European 
war is not only an eventuality against which one 
must guard oneself, but a necessity, moreover 
one which in the interest of the German nation 
one ought to accept witht joy. ... In the 
eyes of these agitators the German nation re- 
quires a war; a long peace is to their mind in 
itself regrettable, and it does not matter whether 
a reason for such a war exists or not ; therefore, 
such a cause must if necessary simply be pro- 
duced. ' ' 

That August, 1914, was thus the most favour- 
able moment is clear from the fact, that the new 
army organisation was completed and in working 
order ; that the strategic railways on the Eastern 
and Western frontiers were completed; and that 
the extension of the Kiel Canal had also been 
carried out. As regards the unfavourable posi- 
tion of the Powers of the Triple Entente : Russia 
had not developed her own strategic railways, 
nor re-organised her army, both of which she 
was actively engaged in doing and expected to 
have completed about two years later ; moreover, 
at that moment she was in the throes of labour 
difficulties, corresponding in some degree to those 



(1) "Der Deutsche Chauvmismus." 

18 



of England two years previously, which had then 
set in motion aggressive movements against us 
by Germany. France could not yet count upon 
the complete fruition of the revised Army Bill 
which would bring her numbers to the required 
proportion for resistance against Germany; 
moreover, scandals concerning the equipment of 
the army had been brought before the public 
through debates in the Chamber and had shown 
great unpreparedness for war, weakness and dis- 
organisation in the French army. Finally, Eng- 
land was in the throes of one of the most serious 
internal crises, owing to the deadlock in the solu- 
tion of the Irish question, and, in the eyes of 
incompetent German diplomats, a revolution 
seemed not improbable, and even more probable 
should a war be forced upon England at that 
moment. I have the best authority for main- 
taining that the ruling powers of Germany were 
absolutely convinced that England was not pre- 
pared to, join the other Powers of the Triple 
Entente and would under all circumstances at 
least remain neutral. Thus the only factor in 
which that moment was least favourable to Ger- 
man aggression, namely, the exceptional readi- 
ness of the mobilised British Fleet, could in the 
estimation of the Kaiser and the German Foreign 
Office be discounted, because they felt confident 
that England would not join in a war, at any rate 
not at the beginning. 

But, over and above all these considerations, 
which made that moment the most propitious for 
a declaration of war on the part of Germany, 
was the very fact for which the Germans might 
be able to claim disinterestedness of motive — 
namely, that the war on the face of it was caused 

19 



by a question primarily concerning Austria-Hun- 
gary and not Germany, and that its immediate 
cause was clearly one which appealed to the sense 
of law and morality in people all the world over. 
For in the first instance it meant a protest against 
murder and the vilest form of assassination of a 
man and a woman who were representative of 
the sovereignty of the great Austrian Empire. It 
could be claimed — apart from all the political 
bearings of that assassination, its origin and con- 
nection with the anti-Serbian policy of Austria 
in the immediate past and for many years before 
that date, and even with the suspicion that Aus- 
tria herself was not free from collusion in this 
political crime of assassination — it could be 
claimed, I say, that morally a great power was 
justified in punishing a heinous crime, recognised 
as such by the whole civilised world, and in tak- 
ing steps that such crime should not occur again. 
There was thus a favourable element in this 
appeal to common justice, as regards the indi- 
vidual incident out of which this war, concerning 
the national interests and aspirations of all the 
countries, grew. There was further a claim to 
disinterestedness on Germany's part as the mat- 
ter primarily concerned her ally and not herself. 
But above all — and this I msh to emphasise — 
the most important element was the fact that the 
chief antagonist of the Germanic powers in this 
international quarrel mth the Entente Powers 
was not Anglo-Saxon England or Latin France, 
but the Slav world — Serbia, behind whom stood 
Kussia. The chief antagonists in this great war 
could thus be clearly and distinctly defined as 
Kussia and the Tuetonic powers, the Slav and 
the Teuton. This was the most important and 

20 



decisive factor in the whole confluence of cir- 
cumstances which made for war and could justify 
it in the eyes of the German people and of the 
whole world. At the beginning of the war this 
element was utilised to the full by the German 
Government, the German press, and every organ 
of publicity which could affect the German nation 
itself and the neutral peoples of the civilised 
world. The antagonism was clearly defined as 
lying between Germany and her allies and Russia 
and her allies, between the Teuton and the Slav, 
between Germanic culture and Slav culture. Fur- 
thermore, on the wider political side it could be 
used to symbolise the conflict between benighted 
autocracy and despotism represented by Russia, 
and the enlightenment of progressive Germany. 
This fact was of supreme importance in the be- 
ginnings of this war and remains so to this day. 
It not only won over all the possible liberal op- 
ponents to war in Germany itself, but it also won 
over, or at least caused to waver in their adher- 
ence and sympathy, the liberal elements in many 
of the neutral countries— especially those who 
appreciated and valued German culture, science 
and art, and equally opposed and deplored the 
autocratic rule and the benighted social degrada- 
tion of the Russian people. Had this war been 
primarily declared by Germany against France 
or against England on any contentious issue be- 
tween Germany and these countries, not only the 
socialists, but the mass of the liberal thinking 
Germans, would have been opposed in feeling and 
sympathy to such a war, or would at least have 
been lukewarm in their support of it. But when 
it could be clearly impressed upon the national 
consciousness that the fight meant the self-pres- 

21 



ervation of Teutonism in its struggle with Pan- 
Slavism, that the ever-present danger to Ger- 
many of being crushed by its all-powerful auto- 
cratic neighbour, had come to an imminent climax, 
and that the actual war was wantonly forced on 
Germany by the Russian Tsar, who had treacher- 
ously mobilised his forces against Germany in 
contravention of his plighted word, we can un- 
derstand, not only that the pacifists were silenced 
for the time being; but even that a wave of pa- 
triotic enthusiasm and of warlike determination 
swept over the whole of the German nation, who 
from that time on rose like one man to defend 
the fatherland and their Teutonic culture and 
ideals, against the ruthless and deceitful foe. 

But here comes one of the most striking and 
singular incidents in the history of national psy- 
chology, as illustrating the facility, the stupend- 
ous levity, with which a whole nation can be duped 
and its deepest convictions turned from one di- 
rection to another within a few days, even to the 
very opposite pole of the dominant passion which 
had before swayed millions. At a given moment 
Russia was dropped from the sphere of supreme 
culpability and enmity and England was substi- 
tuted. Since then there are manifest signs of 
attempts (such as those made in the letters of 
Herr Ballin published in the "Times" of April 23, 
1915) to deny the initial antagonism against Rus- 
sia, because of equally manifest diplomatic moves, 
if possible to drive a wedge into the Triple En- 
tente and to bring about an understanding be- 
tween reactionary autocratic Russia and militar- 
istic and autocratic Germany. But the one out- 
standing fact is, that the doctrine of hate against 
England, established and preached for a number 

22 



of years in the immediate past in more or less 
open and avowed forms, has now become the all- 
powerful and all-pervading motive of German 
official and popular patriotism. Evidence now 
furnished proves beyond all possible doubt, that 
this plan and its supreme end were in the minds 
of the militaristic section of the German people 
for a number of years past, and that this mili- 
taristic section has gained full dominance over 
the whole of the united German people. 

The program of the Alldeiitsche Partei, the 
Wehmverein, and other smaller organisations, as 
laid down, not only in the well-known book of 
Bernhardi, but in numerous documents and in all 
the speeches made by the representatives of these 
parties, was step by step adopted in its complete- 
ness by the German Government with the Kaiser 
at its head. The Alldeutsche Partei, which in the 
past was supposed to be, and definitely maintained 
by German authorities to be a negligible minority, 
now has absolute and undisputed control of the 
fate of the German nation. But even at the time 
that diplomatic negotiations preceding the out- 
break of the war were progressing and on the 
actual declaration of war, this aggressive pro- 
gram had for all practical purposes already been 
adopted. It can be shown beyond all doubt that 
the war was begun by Germany, not because of 
the danger threatening the self-preservation of 
Germany and of German culture, from the Rus- 
sian and the Slav; that the Teuton had no place 
in the Balkans, where the claims of the Slav must 
be admitted to be paramount; and that so far 
from the Western powers of the Triple Entente — 
(certainly England and probably France) — being 
a party to Slav aggression, which endangered the 

23 



independence of Germany and her people and 
the development and expansion of its culture, they 
had intimated clearly their opposition to such an 
aggression and even their readiness to enforce it. 
The war was beyond all doubt forced upon the 
world by those who were convinced that the 
German race and German civilisation must ex- 
pand in extent and in power all over the world 
on the same scale as the British Empire. Wlier- 
ever this expansion might be impeded or blocked 
by British power and British interests such 
obstacles should be removed by force of arms. 
Above all, that the Teuton race and Teuton civil- 
isation should supersede the world-hegemony of 
Britain and should wrest from its hated rival the 
possessions and predominance which English 
forefathers, under favorable circumstances of 
history, had won for England, together with the 
numerous and grave responsibilities and duties 
which Great Britain thereby owed to the civilised 
world. How, within the last ten or twenty years, 
this national program, this "destiny" of the Ger- 
man peoples had been impressed upon the Ger- 
man nation, with what systematic organisation 
among the adult population, and with what thor- 
ough and far-reaching pedagogic training it had 
been spread and fostered among the youthful 
population, who are now fighting the German 
battles, in schools and universities. Professor 
Nippold's book amply proves by documentary 
e\ddence. The glorification of might, irrespective 
of right, is the leading moral, or immoral, factor 
in this national movement, and it has ended, 
as is now finally proved, in this ruthless 
war of frightfulness by land and sea, ignor- 
ing all hmnan feeling, human pity, or Chris- 

24 



tain charity, all chivalry and military honour, 
dealing at the outset with treaties as scraps of 
paper, and breaking the national plighted troth 
in repudiating those international agreements to 
which Germany was a signatory. It has led to 
the complete demoralisation, or rather amoral- 
isation, of the German people. 

In the light of this supreme result of German 
Alldeutsche patriotism, the invocation of higher 
moral aims, conveyed by the cant use of the term 
Kultur, does not only strike the impartial ob- 
server as insincere, but as grotesquely paradox- 
ical. The highest flight to which the apologists 
of German ruthlessness can soar in upholding the 
cause of German civilisation, is embodied in the 
letters recently published by the "Times" in 
which Herr Ballin and Herr Rattenau (the di- 
rector of the large commercial electrical works at 
Berlin) extol German culture and German moral 
elevation as compared with English degeneracy 
and the idleness of the English nation, whose con- 
ception of life and all the aims of science and art 
do not exclude the cultivation of leisure, physic- 
ally and spiritually, in developing the amenities of 
civilised existence. English culture and life are 
contrasted with a German conception of science 
and human existence entirely subordinated to 
commercialism, to industrial progress and 
wealth — in one word, a life of banausic material- 
ism. But these captains of industry — who, with 
the ruthless militarists and the penurious All- 
deutsche Streher, now rule Germany — show, with 
singular naivete, how their conception of science, 
art and social life, entirely subordinated to the 
immediate and ultimate aim of material wealth, 
has superseded all other ideals of German Kultur 

25 



on which the Germans once prided themselves, 
and which they even now occasionally claim with 
manifest insincerity, when extrolling so-called 
"German idealism." 

Let us consider the comparative weight and 
value of this German Kultur which is arrogantly 
put forward as so superior to that of all other 
nations, that it ought, in the rightness of things, 
to supersede all other forms of civilisation. 

Concomitant with the spirit of antagonism, as 
its more positive complement, the Germans cul- 
tivate an inflated national pride and exalt, far 
beyond its intrinsic and comparative value, Ger- 
man Kultur. Kultur, be it noted, is not quite 
synonymous with our term culture; but connotes 
the individual state of civilisation to which each 
nation has attained. In the first instance, they 
contrast their Kultur with that of Russia, and 
rightly maintain that it would be a misfortune 
to the whole world if their Germanic civilisation 
were superseded by that of the Slavs. We may 
at once admit that we should all regard such an 
eventuality as a loss to humanity. But, as we 
shall see, there never was and never will be, any 
danger — especially as regards the power of Great 
Britain to regulate or influence the course of his- 
torical events — of such a catastrophe. Much as 
we appreciate and prize the civilisation repre- 
sented by Pushkin, Gogol, Llermontof, Turgenev, 
Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Solovev, Yakovlev, Chekhov, 
Gorky, Merezhkovsky, Krylov, Kolstov, Nekra- 
sov; of Glinka, Dargomijsky, Rubinstein, Tchaik- 
ovsky, Moussorgsky, Boroudin, Cui, Rimsky-Kor- 
sakov, Rachmaninov, Glazounov, Stravinsky, 
Scriabin; of Mendeleyev, Metchnikov, Pavlov, 
Lebedev, Hvolson, Kovalevsky, Lobachevsky, 

26 



Minkovsky, and Vinogradoff — we do not think 
that the Russia of today, and for some time to 
come, can, with any advantage to the world at 
large, effectually impose its civilisation on any 
one of the Western civilised powers. 

But these Chauvinists claim moral and intel- 
lectual pre-eminence for German civilisation and, 
appealing to the world history which is "the final 
tribunal of the world" {Die Weltgeschichte ist 
das Weltgericht), they are convinced that the 
predominance of Germany is thus morally justi- 
fied, nay, is a necessary consequence of any rea- 
sonable and equitable regulation of the destiny 
of the world. Let us at once deal with this 
chimera of German Kultur and assign to it its 
right place. It is futile and childish to institute 
such comparisons in things of the mind, which 
are imponderable and ought never to be com- 
pared with a view to establishing comparative 
claims of pre-eminence. As Heine has said: 
"Who can weigh flames?" But when such a 
childish comparison is forced on us, let us make 
it truthfully. Many of us gratefully and un- 
stintingly recognise and acknowledge the hegem- 
ony of Germany in several departments and 
aspects of civilised life and higher mental ac- 
tivity. We have profited by German achievement 
and have endeavoured to learn and to absorb the 
spirit of it. The foremost and most characteristic 
achievement of the German mind for M^hich the 
world must thus be grateful and by which we 
have profited, is the thorough and rational organ- 
isation of thought and science, especially on the 
pedagogic side, as embodied in their educational 
system from schools to universities. This has re- 
sulted in the most striking and effective modifi- 

27 



cation of the whole life of the German people, 
and is the source of all the success which they 
have achieved even in the most material and 
practical aspects of their existence. It means the 
I'oalisation of the value of the highest, and even 
the most abstract, thought and science, by the 
whole population, including the industrial and 
commercial w^orld. In this respect we have all 
learnt from Germany and are still endeavouring 
to follow her lead. But in the actual advance- 
ment of Science and Thought itself, in the im- 
posing of new directions of thought, which puts 
a stamp on the spirit of the age as it directly 
advances each department of human knowledge, 
Germany has no pre-eminence over France and 
England. Our thinkers have thus contributed as 
much to the advance of civilisation as have those 
of Germany. Perhaps a strong case might be 
made for the pre-eminence of both England and 
France in this respect. 

In tlie domain of art we may at once admit 
that Germany has in modern times led the way 
in music. We need not go the lengths of Nietzsche 
and deny this by asserting that "a German can- 
not know what music is. The men who pass as 
German musicians are foreigners, Slavs, Croats, 
Italian, Dutchmen or Jews." Even if, (as he as- 
serts) Beethoven was Dutch in origin, and even 
if Wagner, as he suggests, had Jewish blood, the 
Dutchman certainly became an Austrian German 
and, if Wagner had Jewish blood, he was as much 
of German nationality as most modern Teutons, 
and much more so than a Prussian Slav. The 
latter, by the way, has hardly produced any of 
the great men upon whose achievements German 
Kultur rests its claims. 

28 



But in all the other arts and in literature, 
especially within the last century, the place of 
Germany is distinctly second to that of France 
and England. More than all this, however, in 
all that concerns the "Art of Living," in the 
political and social education of the people, Ger- 
many has much to learn from the Western Eur- 
opean nations. The average political education 
of the British people has for centuries been and 
is at present higher than that of the Germans, 
and their domestic and social life, the true art of 
living, and their home life, all tending to and 
conforming with the higher standards of social 
ethics which have as their ideal the type of 
the "gentleman" — are such that it would be a 
sad day, not only for England, but for the world, 
if military efficiency and power were to replace 
these by the Knltur dominating Germany.^ 

But of the Art and Literature of France and 
England and all that home and social life in 
England mean, the German professors who have 
made themselves the mouthpieces of the Chauvin- 
ists know very little, if anything. How many of 
them have even a nodding acquaintance with 
British architecture — not only Mediaeval and 
Renaissance, but since the days of Christopher 
Wren— of the paintings of Gainsborough, Rey- 
nolds, Romney, Raeburn, Hopner, Turner, not to 
mention contemporary masters ? How many have 
read (though they may know Byron) Keats and 
Shelley, Wordsworth, Browning and Tennyson? 
They apparently do know the works of Wilde and 
Bernard Shaw ; but are they acquainted with any 
of our leading contemporary writers and poets? 
And, as far as our national life and our life at 



(1) See below pp. 32-53 for further expositor! of these facts. 

29 



home is concerned, how many of them have lived 
among us and entered into the life of every class 
of the community? I am told on the best of 
authority that the coryphaeus among the political 
and official university professors, who for years 
has written — and, as an authority, has been list- 
ened to with convinced respect by the German 
public — on England and English affairs (Pro- 
fessor Schiemann) visited England for the first 
time two years ago, when he took part in the 
Historical Congress held in London. On the 
other hand, I venture to state that there are very 
large numbers of people in England and in the 
United States who have spent years in study 
and in travel in Germany, and have had oppor- 
tunities of intimate acquaintanceship and inter- 
course with representatives of every class and 
occupation among the population of that country. 
The question must have forced itself on the minds 
of many, after the experiences since the war be- 
gan, how men mth the best of training in scien- 
tific discipline should have proved so incapable of 
forming an unbiassed opinion as was manifested 
by the various proclamations signed by the most 
distinguished names in modern science and learn- 
ing. What to my mind is still more astonishing 
is the fact that with the highly-developed sense of 
truth, such as a scientific training ought to give, 
they should have at all ventured to express de- 
cided opinions when they had not at their dis- 
posal the facts and sources of information upon 
which an induction could be made or a judgment 
formed. For I am informed that, while we here 
had before us the German Whitebook and pub- 
lished accounts of the German communiques con- 
cerning the war, our own White and Blue books 

30 



and similar publications of our allies were, until 
quite recently, forbidden in Germany, a fine of 
Mrks. 3000 or thirty days' imprisonment being 
imposed upon any person found in possession of 
such publications. It would lead us too far astray 
to account for the mentality of the German man 
of learning and his preparatory training to ex- 
plain the singular phenomenon of his incapacity 
to judge fairly of matters political and interna- 
tional. But in this one definite case, it is enough 
to say, that most of them were not possessed of 
the true facts upon which to base a fair judgment. 
In any case we can account for the almost arro- 
gant assumption of superiority assigned by them 
to the Kultur of Germany over that of the West- 
ern states, though this assumption is in no wise 
justified. 



31 



CHAPTER II 

The Older Germany 

There was and there still exists a German 
Kultur which we all acknowledge and respect. 
This national civilisation had its roots deep down 
in the historic past and produced the generation 
which achieved German unity, established the 
German Empire, deepened and widened German 
thought, raised on high and carried far afield the 
torch of science and of learning and, above all, 
instilled into the whole of the German people 
and into the very air they breathed the spirit of 
thoroughness. The Germans of today did not 
achieve these results themselves; but they have 
received them as a priceless gift from their fath- 
ers and grand fathers, and from these results 
whatever success they may have achieved, in 
peace or in war have arisen. Thej^ have, 
in the present generation, directed this vital and 
elevating force exclusively into the channels of 
material interest, have tarnished its brightness, 
have materialised its spirituality and have, and 
are, continuously diminishing the rich patrimony 
which the Germans of old handed down to them. 

The Germany of today is the Germany of com- 
mercial Streberthum in the service of military 
force — the age which has growm up to initiate and 
to carry on this war will be marked as the ap- 
otheosis of Streherthum. Now the Streher is not 
the impostor or adventurer of old. He has learnt 
something and knows something, and he might 

32 



learn and know much more. But no time is left 
for the deepening of his knowledge and the ele- 
vation of its uses, because he is swayed by the 
premature and superlative desire — if I may be 
forgiven a modern vernacular phrase — 'to make 
it pay at once, and to get there at once.' The 
English and the Americans have their 'climbers' 
and 'pushers,' and the French have their strug- 
lifers and their arrives. But these repulsive off- 
shoots of modern commercialism are with us free 
from cant and self-deception; they are clear-cut 
types who openly, and often with coarse cynicism, 
repudiate all higher professions. But the Ger- 
man Streher uses great phrases: he plays the 
part of the poor man of science or scholar, noble- 
man or diplomat, or even soldier. In the spirit 
of these individual Streher the nation as a whole, 
which aims at power and nothing more, whose 
professed goal is commercial and financial ex- 
pansion, will pose before the world as the cham- 
pion of Kultur- and, a revolver in one hand, 
raises high in the other the schoolmaster's birch, 
threatening the world with pedagogic chastise- 
ment to improve its mind and manners; while, 
speedily dropping the friendly swish, it grasps 
at the money-bags of its recalcitrant pupils. This 
is the world and these are the aims of the All- 
deutscJie Streher who have made this war. But 
it would be as inaccurate and untrue, as it is 
unfair and misleading, to believe or maintain that 
the whole German nation is made up of such 
Strehers, though, for the time being, they have 
won the day in Germany and have succeeded in 
imposing their own would-be ideals upon the bulk 
of the nation. The older type of the true Ger- 
man — not the Prussian junker, the learned or un- 

33 



learned adventurer — still exists and represents 
the majority of the German nation. His ideals 
still persist in moving and guiding the mass of 
the people, however much they may be cast into 
the remote and invisible distance for the time, 
and however much his eyes may be bedimmed 
by the untruths, the suppression of facts and the 
misdirection of patriotic devotion which the mil- 
itarists have spread over the nation. When the 
eyes of the sane majority among Germans can 
again stand the bright light of truth which has 
been withheld from them, and they revive from 
this fit of barbarous madness which has come 
upon them, they will return to their true selves 
and the Fatherland will again be the country and 
the nation which so many of us have loved and 
admired ! 

The Germany of old that has been swept aside 
or submerged by the Germany of modern Stre- 
herthum and militarism, the domination of Ger- 
man Chauvinism, with Berlin as a centre of in- 
fluence and focus of vision, was really the product 
of the Germany that consisted of numerous small 
states and principalities. Through these and 
through the consequent system of decentralisa- 
tion, their Kultur which we admired was called 
into existence and received its differentiating 
stamp. It was at once individualised in these 
several centers, giving varied character to the 
different forms of spiritual life, and at the same 
time diffusing such spiritual life into every dis- 
tant part of the country and into every social 
layer of the nation. It differed in this from the 
culture of France and England and every other 
nation, where the large capital, the metropolis, 
was the dominant home and centre drawing to 

34 



itself all intellectual forces and all talent, and 
diffusing from this centre that one dominant 
form of civilisation — and even way of thinking. 
In the other European countries culture was not 
only stereotyped into one dominant form, but, by 
irresistibly attracting and centralising the spirit- 
ual life within the metropolis, the various pro- 
vincial centres were drained of their talent and 
of their spiritual vitality, and the nation at large, 
outside the metropolis, fell into apathy and 
lethargy in matters of the mind, resigning itself 
to narrowness and inactivity and spreading an 
atmosphere of banausic materialism and provin- 
cialism. German culture did not thus become 
metropolitan; it did not depend upon one capital 
with a huge population, concentrating all culture 
as well as all misery, but was diffused over the 
whole country and throughout the whole people. 
Ideality could thus thrive; and out of this 
ideality grew the quality of thoroughness which 
is the greatest spiritual asset which the German* 
nation possesses. These forces again were fav- 
oured in their growth and persistency by the de- 
centralisation and particularisation of national 
life throughout the numberless principalities, the 
smaller capitals with their great universities and 
their highly organised schools. Each principality 
had its leading theatres, opera houses and con- 
cert halls, with highly trained artists, dramatic 
and musical; its poets and men of letters; its 
composers, painters and sculptors. These were 
not attracted to the one national metropolis, but 
preferred to live in the smaller towns and princi- 
palities, among the congenial society where they 
were honoured and appreciated. The tradition 
of paying tribute and honour and of conferring 

35 



tangible and manifest distinction upon these 
leaders of culture was created and fostered by 
the petty princes and rulers, even the civic au- 
thorities, of these numerous centres of higher life. 
No general or cabinet minister, or judge, still less 
a successful financier and captain of industry, 
could rob them of the distinction conferred upon 
them from above and which was reflected through- 
out the population. There was thus bred and 
fostered, as a potent reality among the population 
the hero-worship of the "Knights of the Mind," 
of the representatives of art and science ; and the 
young man of the day in his dreams of glory 
turned to the vision of the great personalities of 
a Schiller, a Goethe, a Heine ; of a Beethoven and 
Mozart; of an Alexander Humboldt and of the 
great band of philisophers and men of science; 
and his imagination and his longing dreams of 
fame were fired by these monumental figures in 
the Valhalla of German greatness. He would 
have preferred to wear the mantel of their sov- 
ereignty to that of any of the great statesmen 
or generals in Germany's past. 

What a change in spirit has come over the 
German people within the last decade or two, 
through the influence of the Chauvinists, may 
best be appreciated in their own words when, as 
quoted by Nippold, one of their spokesmen, Med- 
izinalrath Dr. W. Fuchs, addresses the German 
youth in the following words :^ "Who are the 
men who soar to the greatest heights in the his- 
tory of the German people, whom do the heart- 
beats of the German encircle with the most ardent 
love? Do you think Goethe, Schiller, Wagner, 
Marx? 0, no; but Barbarossa, the Great Fred- 



(1) "Die Post," 28 Jan., 1912. 

36 



erick, Bliicher, Moltke, Bismarck, the hard men 
of blood (Blutmenschen) . They who sacrificed 
thousands of lives, they are the men towards 
whom, from the soul of the people, the tenderest 
feeling, a truly adoring gratitude wells forth. 
Because they have done what we now ought to 
do. Because they w^ere so brave, so fearless of 
responsibility, as no one else. But now civic 
morality must condemn all these great men; for 
the civilian guards nothing more jealously than 
his civic morality, — and, nevertheless, his holiest 
thrills are evoked by the Titan of the blood- 
deed!" 

The supreme expression of the last phase in 
this earlier glorious tradition of the German 
people concentrated round the court of the Crown 
Prince Frederick and his Consort. It was 
through their influence that Germany undertook, 
as a great national feat in peace, the excavations 
of Olympia w^hich aroused such interest through- 
out all layers of German society and filled the 
nation with just pride, initiating a movement in 
that one department of the study of the Hellenic 
past which caused renewed activity and emula- 
tion in every other civilised country. In the 
palace of the Cro^vn Prince, and later of the 
Empress Frederick, the great men of the day in 
literature, science and art were the familiar and 
welcomed guests. Helmholtz and Virchow, Curtius 
and Mommsen, von Ranke, Joachim — in fact every 
leader of art and thought in Berlin — were drawn 
to this imperial centre ; and every person of dis- 
tinction who came as a visitor, even those from 
distant countries found an honoured welcome 
there. It has been said by more than one ob- 
server of German affairs, not only that this war 

37 



would have been inconceivable had the Emperor 
Frederick survived ; but that German national life 
would, on the lines of its true eminence, have 
advanced to greater heights in our own days and 
would have had a lasting and elevating influence 
on the life and civilisation of all other European 
countries and of the world at large. No greater 
loss has been sustained by the world at large in 
the death of one man, perhaps in the whole of 
history, than by the premature death of the Em- 
peror Frederick. 

Above all, however, was this spirit of ideal 
thoroughness fostered in the Germany of old by 
the system of education. The distinctive advan- 
tage which Germany thus possessed is again 
closely knit up with the decentralisation of its 
smaller states and principalities. This distinc- 
tive advantage, in which Germany differs from 
all other countries in modern times, is to be found 
in the fact that in those days the educational 
system was constructed from its highest mani- 
festation downwards — it was, as it were, deduc- 
tive and theoretical and not inductive and em- 
pirical. Education did not begin from below, 
arising out of elementary or elemental needs of 
daily life, and then, spasmodically and unsyste- 
matically, work its way upwards in slow and 
uncertain and irrational progression, as was, and 
is the case in most other countries; but the di- 
rection was given, the keynote was struck, by the 
highest institutions of learning in their purest 
and highest spiritual form, namely their univers- 
ities. Pure knowledge and systematic thorough- 
ness were aimed at as the ultimate goal, and up 
to this all the lower and more elementary stages 
were to lead. Every one of these smaller princi- 

38 



palities thus had its university, where pure 
science and learning were studied thoroughly for 
their own sakes. In those days, to a lesser degree 
even in the present day, the smaller provincial 
universities could retain on their staff the higher 
representatives of science and learning, and they 
produced more remarkable work than did the 
great metropolitan universities of Berlin and 
Vienna. The same applied to their schools, 
especially their higher 'schools or gymnasia. 
Many a small town (not by the exceptional pos- 
session of rich and aristocratic foundations, such 
as some of our public schools have), was famed 
for having some of the best schools in Germany. 
It is a noteworthy fact that the present Emperor 
and his brothers were sent to the gymnasium of 
Pleon, a small provincial town, even the name of 
which is unknown to most foreigners. Step by 
step, from the universities downward, the schools 
and the whole educational system of Germany 
was thus built up on the thorough and systematic 
conception of purest and highest knowledge. In 
spite of all endeavours to the contrary, the 
Chauvinists and Strehers have not been able ut- 
terly to destory this spirit ; but, in spite of them- 
selves, and unknown to themselves, they have 
been able to profit by it in skilfully using this 
spirit in their militaristic and wholly mercenary 
tendencies and aims. Though they wish to re- 
place the spirit of pure science, learning and 
philosophy by the narrow standards of applied 
science only, and though in their hearts they de- 
spise the benefactors upon whose efforts they 
live and succeed, they have not been able to sup- 
press the successors of men like the mathema- 
tician Gauss, who drank a toast to the study of 

39 



pure mathematics in extolling that study as "the 
only science which had never been polluted by a 
practical application. ' ' In recent years, however, 
the university is being more and more replaced 
by the technical schools, the scientific pursuits of 
which are directly made subservient to the ruling 
spirit of commercialism, as the gymnasia, the 
homes of the humanities among schools, are being 
more and more replaced by the schools directly 
ministering to material gain. The spokesmen for 
science and its claim to respect in Germany are 
now the captains of industry like Herr Rattenau 
and Herr Ballin,^ who glorify before the world 
the achievements of German Kultur and limit 
it to complete subordination of all spiritual 
effort to the increase of industrial activity and 
of material wealth. They glory in the fact that 
their scientific researchers have been ensnared 
and enslaved entirely in the service of their great 
industries, and that the German worker forgoes 
all the other amenities and recreative refinements 
of life in the subordination of the soul's forces 
to this one and only criterion of material success 
and final goal of all culture. That the British 
people, like the ancient Greeks, could cultivate 
physical vigour and a common spirit of recreative 
social impulse in their national games and sports, 
is to them a clear mark of national inferiority 
and degeneracy. Some of their more far-sighted 
countrymen, always regarded the results of our 
national sports and pastimes as a great national 
asset in our favour and endeavoured, during the 
years preceding the war, to introduce these Brit- 
ish institutions into Germany. 



(1) Letters quoted above, p. 25. 

40 



They would do better were they to remind us 
of their past inheritance in their national and 
civic theatres and concert halls and museums 
throughout the country, and the facility with 
which the population at large can enjoy these 
means of spiritual relaxation. It is in this one 
particular sphere that other nations can learn 
from them and are willing to learn from them. 
But their industrial success and the realisation of 
the spirit of thoroughness which underlies it was 
the product of the Germany of the past, the very 
existence of which they have been undermining, 
and against which their militarism and the pres- 
ent war with its barbarous and degrading methods 
of warfare, are striking the death-blow. Year 
by year, since 1871, Berlin is asserting itself as 
the centre of German Kultur, destroying or sap- 
ping the vitality of all these numerous centres 
from which emanated the true vitality of the Ger- 
man spirit. It is the home and fountain of all 
Streherthum, which means the undoing of the 
moral and spiritual vitality of the German nation. 

Let us pause for a moment and endeavour to 
recall a picture of the German as we have known 
him, and let me endeavor in a few strokes to 
recall to memory the various types of Germans 
who existed before and who, I repeat, still exist 
in great numbers. 

To begin with the most prominent and most 
powerful caste. I can vividly recall to mind 
the personality of one of the rulers of the lesser 
German states, who died at an advanced age, 
shortly before the war. He was, like the Prince 
Consort, a successor to those princes who created 
the Court of Weimar in which Goethe lived and 
from which an atmosphere of most refined cul- 

41 



ture emanated over the world. Well over six 
feet in height and of military and commanding 
erectness in stature, he had none of the stiff- 
ness and assertive awkwardness of the typical 
Prussian soldier. A soldier he was, however, 
having fought though the whole of the Franco- 
Prussian War in a high command, and having 
profitably devoted much time and thought to the 
theoretical and scientific study of military mat- 
ters ever since. But he restricted such activities 
and interests to his military duties and occupa- 
tions and never carried the manner or tone of 
the soldier into his civil life as the ruler of his 
country, and still less into his private and social 
intercourse. With his clear-cut and refined feat- 
ures, his bright clear eyes and fair complexion, 
his long silvery beard, he presented a most at- 
tractive personality, and combined to the highest 
and fullest degree dignity, kindness and gentleness. 
This gentleness was carried so far as to produce 
a strong element of almost childlike sensitiveness 
and shyness in his nature, which his own impos- 
ing bearing and the visible attributes of his ex- 
alted position could not quite obscure or hide. I 
can hardly recall among the many people I have 
met in my life one whose range of education and 
intellectual interests were at once as wide and 
deep, as versatile and as thorough, for an exam- 
ple of which one naturally turns back to the 
great personalities of the Italian Renaissance. 
One figure in modern times at once occurs to 
one's mind as being of the same calibre and qual- 
ity, namely that of a woman, the Empress Fred- 
erick. 

His school and university studies had been 
most systematic and thorough and were com- 

42 



pleted in his youth by extensive travels. General 
education was supplemented by almost profes- 
sional training in drawing and painting, which 
led to such proficiency, that the leading German 
painter of his time, the elder Kaulbach, expressed 
his regret *that the Prince could not devote him- 
self entirely to the pursuit of the painter's craft, 
as he would certainly have won for himself a 
prominent place among the artists of his day.' 
In music his catholic and refined appreciativeness 
covered the whole field of past and contemporary 
art and led him to sympathetic support of the 
new movements which he stimulated and en- 
couraged, he himself being a distinguished per- 
former. None of the arts were foreign to him, 
including sculpture, architecture, and the decora- 
tive arts. In literature his interest, appreciation 
and understanding covered the same wide field, 
far beyond the limits of his own country and its 
language. Well versed in French and Italian, 
his English was imperfect; and yet he strove to 
master and to follow the great movements of 
English letters and thought and was one of the 
most thorough Shakespeare scholars in Germany. 
The same interest was manifested in science and 
philosophy. He sought the company and friend- 
ship of the leading scholars and scientists in the 
neighbouring university, took the keenest and 
most active interest in learning and research as 
pursued there, and was himself a direct supporter 
of the more practical application of science to the 
higher optical production of scientific instru- 
ments, which have not only made his small Cap- 
ital the centre of one of the most advanced and 
scientifically refined industries for the whole 
world, but have at the same time given an ex- 

43 



ample for economic co-operation and the direct 
bestowal of commercial profit for the social bet- 
terment of the community. Besides this he was 
a keen sportsman with the true sportsman's 
spirit, fond of horses, an exceptionally good shot, 
who even when eighty years of age stalked and 
bagged his stag in the woods and laid him low in 
the most perfect style, avoiding all cruelty and 
pain. From his earliest days to his recent death 
he made of his principality and its capital a scene 
of highest culture. He attracted to it and held 
there, by the material and social inducements 
which he could offer, the leading representatives 
of art and culture. From the early days when 
Otto Ludwig, the novelist and critic (whose essays 
on Shakespeare Tvdll always remain classical) was 
resident in his capital, he invited thither the poets 
Geibel and Bodenstaedt, the dramatist Paul Lin- 
dau and many others. He drew to his capital the 
musician Hans von Buelow and many of the now 
prominent conductors of Germany, to all of whom 
he gave official positions in order to enable them 
to devote themselves to their art without ma- 
terial care, and at the same time made their 
homes the centres of highest culture for the com- 
munity over which he presided. Brahms became 
his personal friend, and constantly visited the 
capital, so that his own home was one of the 
centres from which the music of that great master 
emanated over the world. The orchestra of that 
small town was one of the foremost in Europe 
and astonished audiences far away even as Lon- 
don by the perfection of their rendering of class- 
ical masterpieces. The most widely known, how- 
ever, among these peaceful achievements was the 
theatre; and here, under his personal direction, 

44 



a new phase of modern dramatic art was initiated 
which, owing to the visits paid by the company 
to most of the capitals of the world, marked a 
distinct epoch in dramatic presentation. Wlien 
we add to this that the capital of this thinly pop- 
ulated principality was not long ago inhabited by 
not more than 15,000 people, and now does not 
exceed 20,000, it will be miderstood what the in- 
fluence of this one leading personality meant. To 
these qualities must be added the gracious, kindly 
and warm-hearted attitude which he held towards 
all those who came in contact with him. He was 
a true gentleman. Finally I must add, that he 
was strongly opposed to the modern spirit which 
he identified with Prussia and with Berlin, even 
though his first wife was a Prussian princess, and 
that he deplored the change in morals and in 
tone which he saw coming over Germany from 
that direction. 

I can further call up to my mind many Germans 
of the aristocratic class, narrow though they may 
have been, and bred in a restricted atmosphere 
of — to us — an unnatural survival of the feudal 
system. These are distinct from — in fact may 
be contrasted to — the Junker-class out of which 
many a Streber has been enlisted. Through their 
education they sincerely believed that, by birth 
and tradition, they were differentiated, in char- 
acter, in manners and in habits, from the rest of 
the people among whom they lived. To the mod- 
ern Englishman or American the sincerity of 
such a conviction is not quite intelligible. What 
makes it most difficult for us to understand is 
the fact that, in spite of their education, thought 
and experience, their wide range of knowledge 
and interest, their acquaintance with other coun- 

45 



tries and peoples, and the widening of their men- 
tality through travel and reading, such a con- 
viction could still remain intact and sincere. But 
the fact that they held it truly is beyond all 
doubt, and is apparently explained by the fact 
that they only applied it to their own country and 
people, and admitted that it might not apply to 
other countries. Yet, with the limitation of this 
narrowness of personal outlook as it concerned 
their own social relations to their own people, 
there was associated, as an outcome of it, a high 
development of the sense of honour and of the 
social responsibilities which rested upon them. 
The merchant and money-making classes and the 
pursuits which they followed did not in their 
eyes favour the lofty integrity of their own prin- 
ciples and conduct. They were pronouncedly un- 
mercenary, despisers of money and would spend 
their gold freely en grand seigneur or bear their 
poverty uncomplainingly and wdth dignity. Many 
of them were men of cosmopolitan culture, stu- 
dents of the arts and sciences, with the most pro- 
found respect for achievements in every direction. 
Next to their own immediate caste the "Knights 
of the Mind" held the first place. In fact in 
most cases they would, if the choice had been put 
before them, have sought the company, and 
valued the regard of, the representatives of 
higher culture more even than those of the feudal 
magnates. Many of them were keen sportsmen 
and, if only on this ground, bestowed admiration 
and sympathy on Englishmen above all other 
foreigners. Their home-life, though retaining 
most of the simple German characteristics, was 
chiefly modelled on the pattern of the English 
country house. Their bearing and manners were 

46 



marked by reserve and dignity, with strict main- 
tenance of politeness and affability, with slight 
reminiscences of German stiffness, but with the 
avoidance of the typical and assertive formality 
of the Prussian officer. Such men would at once 
be characterised as men of refinement and dis- 
tinction and would be called in Germany ''Vor- 
nehme Herren." 

I can next recall brilliant representatives 
among the merchant class and manufacturers and 
the old-established bankers. They generally be- 
longed to the former free cities, where their class 
had maintained social superiority continuously 
from the Middle Ages to the present time, from 
Hamburg and the Hanseatic cities, through 
Frankfort and Nurenberg, even to the Swiss 
towns. The traditions of the old German mer- 
chant, and even the leading craftsman, absorbed 
by the modern manufacturer and upheld by the 
best representatives of finance which dominated 
the mediaeval life of the free cities, still pertained 
and opposed their obstinate vitality of business 
honour to the onslaught of modern commercial 
degeneracy. To them a man 's word was as good 
as his bond; the prospect of insolvency or bank- 
ruptcy was to them as great a calamity as death 
itself. When shortly after 1870 the whole of 
Germany and the world at large were scandalised 
by the revelations of the promoting swindles 
(GrunderscJiwindel), a cry of indignant reproval 
came from the representative merchants, manu- 
facturers and financiers who upheld the older 
traditions of commercial morality. In the Reisch- 
stag it was especially the National Liberal Party 
headed by Lasher, who held up these men to public 
contempt. These men of sterling moral character 

47 



had received a sound education, generally class- 
ical, at the gymnasium and at the university; 
they had travelled much and were conversant with 
several languages ; and they made of their homes 
centres of higher culture in which the arts were 
practised and appreciated and in which the liter- 
atures of foreign countries, as well as of Ger- 
many, were cultivated by all its members, includ- 
ing the women. I can recall such homes where 
the "Revue des deux Mondes" and the best Eng- 
lish periodicals were always to be seen and read, 
together with the leading authors of France and 
England, and even Italy and Russia. Few homes 
of such cosmopolitan culture could be found in 
any other country. But, not only in the towns I 
have mentioned, but even in Berlin itself, such 
homes and such social centres existed and carried 
on traditions of previous generations reaching 
back even to the Eighteenth Century. The letters 
of Varnhagen and the memoirs grouping round 
the Mendelssohn family give a picture of the cul- 
tured life of such circles at Berlin. The social 
tone, moreover, was more gracious and graceful, 
more distinctly expressive of the men and women 
of the world, than that of the higher bureaucratic 
militaristic, and even aristocratic, world of the 
Berlin of those days. 

I now gratefully turn to another group of Ger- 
man personalities: namely, the men of science 
and learning. Many of these were in the past, 
as they are today, narrow and underbred crafts- 
men, who happened to have chosen a more in- 
tellectual craft in lieu of a handicraft, upon which 
they have specialised to the exclusion of all other 
humanising, refining and elevating pursuits and 
practices. But a large number in those days 

48 



were men of the highest character, of refined 
general education, and of the loftiest ideals and 
practices of life. Moreover, however interesting, 
typical and expressive the type of the poor Ger- 
man professor immortalised by Carlyle's "Teu- 
felsdroecJc" may have been, the men I have now 
in mind were not poor or circumscribed in their 
means of living, with corresponding habits and 
manners of life. It ought to be more widely 
known — for it has frequently led to important 
and far-reaching misconceptions — that the Ger- 
man university professor and man of science and 
learning was in the past, and is in the present, in 
his material and financial position, as well placed 
as the highest representatives in the military, 
bureaucratic, judicial, and even the ministerial 
walks of life. The men whom I have in mind lived 
on the same scale of affluence, and cultivated the 
amenities of life to the same degree, as those of 
the wealthy upper classes. They travelled and 
widened the horizon of their experiences and 
sympathies. But the whole of their existence and 
mentality was dominated by higher spiritual 
aims, which they recognised as being the same for 
all nationalities. I have endeavored to portray 
such a man in "Professor Baumann" in my 
book on " Herculaneum, "^ I have made him the 
frontispiece for the ideals of a German represen- 
tative of learning. Such men will ever remain' the 
types of what is highest and best in human nature 
and will always be the upholders of the higher 
interests of civilisation, however much they may 
for the time being be diverted from their true 
course by passion and ignorance of the truth. 



(1) Herculaneum, Past, Present and Future, by C. W. and 
Leonard Shoobridge, pp. 181, seq. 

49 



When we now recall the tradesmen and shop- 
keepers of the older days, there rise before us 
men most capable in the pursuit of their own busi- 
ness, thoroughly versed in its every detail, who 
took a definite pride in their life-work. The 
tradesman brought system and high intelligence 
to bear upon the sale of his goods and considered 
the needs of his customers, taking a pride in 
meeting their wants and tastes. Where could 
there be found such booksellers as existed in 
every one of the towns and especially in uni- 
versity towns? The purchaser who asked for 
some new books was not met with the eternal, ir- 
ritating questions in order to identify author and 
publisher, usually ending up with the statement 
that *it is not in the shop, but can be procured 
in a few days.' Such book-sellers kept in touch 
with the production of all their goods in every 
country and every language. You were greeted 
by them almost as a literary friend and met with 
new information or new suggestions about books 
that might possibly interest you and to which 
your attention was drawn. They made a point 
of knowing your own inclinations and your own 
pursuits, as they studied thoroughly the markets 
of production. *' Something new has arrived 
from England (or from France) which I am sure. 
Sir, must interest you." Many of these book- 
sellers were living bibliographical reference 
books, translators, men of wide reading and high 
standing. Some still exist in England and in 
France, but are quite exceptional; whereas in 
Germany of old they were the rule. Now all 
these tradesmen and craftsmen, outside of the 
sphere of their own business, had their higher 
intellectual and artistic interests. They were 

50 



members of the glee clubs, were most of them 
musical performers, and regular attendants at 
the theatre and opera, which their municipal or 
national institution made accessible to their class. 

Even, if we go lower down in the social scale 
to the least intellectual occupations, the smallest 
tradesman, artisan and labourer, through his 
school education and through the intellectual at- 
mosphere about him, was at least in sympathetic 
touch with the higher domains of learning and 
of art, appreciated and valued them and respected 
those who represented the spiritual capital of the 
nation. I shall never forget how, when a student 
at one of the German universities, during a walk- 
ing tour with a party in the Black Forest, we came 
to a small village inn and were greeted by the 
burly inn-keeper. When he learnt that we were 
students, he showed the greatest interest in the 
universities whence we came and asked us which 
of the faculties we belonged to, whether the theo- 
ological, the philosophical, the juridical or the 
medical faculty. To this man, and men of his 
stamp, the universities were national institutions 
in close touch with national life, and, though they 
could not pretend to follow the higher studies, 
they took a deep and sincere interest in the work 
that was carried on and did not feel that such 
higher intellectual work was divorced from the 
actual life of the people. Throughout the whole 
nation in those days there was reverence and re- 
spect for knowledge; not so much because of the 
material advantages which it brings (as is the 
case now), as because of the spiritual, and hence 
the social, value which it presents to national life. 

Among all these people collectively there was, 
in the last generation, a spirit of friendliness and 

51 



cordiality, which indicated a kind heart and pro- 
duced what they call Gemuthlichkeit ; and this 
friendly spirit was also extended the foreigner. 
There was an understanding of, and even an ad- 
miration for the 'foreign' as such, the Fremdart- 
ige, not the ignorant English opposition to the 
foreigner and to what is foreign. At one time — 
perhaps as a result of the dominance of Louis 
XIV over the life and fashion of the princeling- 
courts throughout Germany, as well as the heri- 
tage of Napoleonic rule, — this admiration of the 
foreigner and the foreign may have led to a pref- 
erence over what was indigenous and national, 
and may have encouraged a certain absence of 
self-confidence, if not of servility, which led some 
true German patriots to combat what they con- 
sidered the signs of Lahaien-natur in the German. 
But in those days the German mind, like the 
German language, showed its assimilative power 
and its appreciation of the life and thought of 
all other civilised nations. The mde-reading pub- 
lic in Germany kept in touch with, and enjoyed 
fully, the literature of every other country. The 
cheap popular translations (sixpence or seven- 
pence per volume) such as those published by 
Reklam, brought within their reach, not only the 
most recent books of England and France, but 
also Italian, Scandinavian and Russian authors. 
The wider public thus became acquainted with the 
national psychology of even the Russian mujik, 
as depicted by a Gogol, as they appreciated the 
national music of every country. And this wid- 
ened their own national sympathies. There was 
no country in the world where the mass of the 
inhabitants were to the same degree capable of 
sympathetic understanding of the life of foreign 

52 



nations, and where they brought towards all for- 
eigners such friendly curiosity, a readiness to 
understand, to tolerate, to admire, and to wel- 
come their foreign fellow-men. All this healthy 
growth of moral, intellectual and artistic human- 
ism underlying a friendly feeling towards other 
nationalities has been checked, weakened in its 
growth, and finally extirpated, and has been re- 
placed by an over-weaning arrogance and pride 
in their own superiority through the growth of 
Chauvinism and Militarism, and has at last been 
fanned into consuming hatred of the foreigner, 
especially the foreigner whose prosperity or po- 
sition they envied. 

We are thus convinced that Germany is the 
aggressor in this war; but we believe that this 
war has not been forced on the world by the Ger- 
man nation as a whole, the heirs of the past spirit 
of Germany, but by that section of the nation who 
represent militarism and have for the time being 
effectively gained power over the German mind. 
The mind of Germany, moreover, has been pre- 
pared to receive these baneful influences by the 
steady growth of Chauvinism since 1870. From 
another point of view it means the dominance of 
Prussia and the Prussian spirit over the rest of 
the empire — ^the Prussianising of Germany. 



53 



CHAPTER III 

Prussian Militarism and the Growth of German 
Chauvinism Since 1870. The Glorifica- 
tion OF War 

We all know what is meant by militarism in 
the narrower acceptation of the term. In its 
wider acceptation it includes a modification or an 
exaggeration in the conception of the State both 
as regards internal as well as foreign policy. On 
the one hand, the guardians of national security, 
the^{;XaK€sas the ancient Greeks called them, be- 
come the rulers, and their own special function, 
which ought only to be concerned with one side 
of national life, becomes the all-absorbing end of 
national existence: — all national life is subordi- 
nated to the chief object of wars. On the other 
hand, under the militaristic domination, the State 
as a whole in its relation to other states naturally 
assumes an antagonistic character, regarding all 
other nations as their actual or potential enemies 
and fostering this inimical and warlike attitude 
of mind throughout the people. In one word, it 
leads to Chauvinism. I have on more than one 
occasion defined Chauvinism, as distinguished 
from patriotism.^ Patriotism is the love of one's 
country and one's people; Chauvinism is the 
hatred of other countries and other people. 

The culmination of this spirit of militarism, 
penetrated and saturated by Chauvinism, has 
found its clear, forcible, and uncompromising ex- 



(1) See Expansion of Western Ideals, by the author, Preface 
and pp. 136 seq. 

54 



pression in the writings of Treitschke and Bern- 
hardi and many other prominent authors. How- 
ever much it may be denied, the fact remains that 
these historico-philosophic views, elevated to a 
definite theoretical system of life and morals, 
have penetrated into the national life of Germany 
and have gained practical vitality. This has 
been brought about, in the first instance, by the 
action of the State in matters military and dip- 
lomatic ; by the systematic corruption of the press 
both at home and abroad; by the elaborate and 
costly army of secret agents, spread all over the 
world in times of peace, in order to undermine 
the national life and solidarity of possible future 
enemies ; by the state-subventioned penetration of 
commerce and trade in all parts of the world 
directly subservient to the chief military aims. 
Not only in these manifestations of military Mach- 
iavellism does this nefarious spirit show itself; 
but it has been systematically and directly intro- 
duced into national pedagogics through the 
schools, with a well-drilled and subservient army 
of masters, even in the most elementary phases 
of education. It has also found its way, through 
all intermediate branches, to the very pinnacle of 
German Education in their great universities. 
There the leaders of thought in the highest re- 
gions of science and learning become the respon- 
sive tools of tyrannous state-administration, and 
prove to the world, how scientific and literary 
education may be entirely divorced from political 
education, and how these leaders of thought have 
not yet acquired the political insight and training 
of many a humble and illiterate citizen or sub- 
ject to a truly free country governed on con- 
stitutional principles. Those who have known 

55 



the Germany of the past and the Germany of the 
present realise this complete change in the whole 
character and moral of its people. They also 
realise that, compared with the national life of 
the past, in addition to this dominance of the 
militaristic and Chauvinistic spirit, there has 
been insinuated into the very heart of civil life 
a moral degeneracy more marked and more vir- 
ulent in its form than the diseases of social life 
manifested in any other civilised state of modern 
times. That it should have attacked the German 
people in a form so much more virulent than is 
the case elsewhere is, perhaps, due to the fact 
that, since the great victories of the Franco-Prus- 
sian War which made Germany a great empire, 
and the concomitant and unique rapidity of in- 
dustrial development leading to the influx of great 
wealth, the German people, previously poor and 
possessed of all the virtues that go with simple 
conditions of life on moderate means, have been 
subject to all the physical and moral diseases of 
the nouveau riche, the parvenu. Wealth has 
come to them unprepared to withstand its temp- 
tations, and the virus which dissolves the moral 
fibre has, in their case, not been gradually and 
continuously administered by weaker solutions of 
its potent venom to insure some immunity. It is 
a curious phenomenon, that the Germans have 
charged us with this very disease of moral de- 
generacy from which they are suffering in so 
acute a form. We are surely not untainted as 
regards this modern morbus occidentalis; and 
there certainly is danger, in view of the more 
spasmodic and more localised manifestations of 
the disease among us, that we may diffuse and 
cultivate its germ still further, and even that, 

56 



through this very war and its final results, we 
may suffer from the contagion of those German 
diseases which have led to this huge moral crime 
in the world's history. 

For, even at an early stage of the war, even 
before it had properly begun, there had been 
danger signals lest we should be inoculated with 
militarism, the spirit of which will surely grow 
as the war proceeds. We have growing among us 
and spreading its fibre throughout all classes of 
the community, the malignant disease of Chau- 
vinism from which in the past we were compara- 
tively freer than other nations; though we may 
hope that the symptoms of moral degeneracy so 
clearly manifest before the war may be checked 
by the sternness of the national uprising and of 
our sacrifices, and by the lessons which we may 
learn from its sinister effects in the corruption 
of the old healthy German life of the past. 

I have said that even at the beginning of the 
war there was fear of contagion from the militar- 
istic spirit of a Treitschke or a Bernhardi. Para- 
doxical as it may appear, this very peril has 
come in the first instance from high-minded and 
high-spirited prophets who vainly warned us 
against the Teutonic danger, which so many of us 
failed to realise, and which we must now admit 
they wisely foresaw. Nevertheless, in their own 
anti-militaristic teaching there may be found the 
insidious and hidden dangers of such contagion. 
I will but take one leading type of these wise men 
as manifested in the writings of the late Pro- 
fessor Cramb. 

In impressing upon British people in the most 
forcible manner the peril threatening our very 
national existence from the growth of German 

57 



military power, and in warning us in time to de- 
fend our homes and our position in the world as 
an empire, he has been carried away by his dra- 
matic instinct and the exercise of that rare func- 
tion of intellectual sympathy and altruistic imag- 
ination, to put the case of our enemies in so glow- 
ing and favourable a light, that the result upon 
the impressionable reader may be to ingraft on 
his imagination the spirit and essence of militar- 
ism as Treitschke conveyed it to the German 
people. 

Perhaps also Professor Cramb himself, evi- 
dently endowed with an ardent imagination, at- 
tended the lectures of Treitschke during the im- 
pressionable period of his youth, and came under 
the spell of that powerful personality, until he 
lost sight of the clay feet of his idol, and, while 
opposing the doctrines of the master as they af- 
fected the national life of the pupil's country, un- 
consciously became, at least in part, a disciple 
himself.^ For my own part I cannot understand 
that Trietschke should have had any such influ- 
ence upon anybody, excepting a born Prussian 
with violent Prussian prejudices. Nor can I un- 
derstand the high estimate which so learned a 



(1) This conjecture is strongly confirmed by a passage in Mr. 
W. H. Dawson's book, What is wrong with Germany, perhaps the 
ablest book produced by this war. On p. 38 and the following 
pages, Mr. L»awson, who attended Treitschke's lectures in 1875, 
gives a masterly portrait of Treitschke, the lecturer, and shows 
the influence he had on his audience. He endeavours to dis- 
tribute light and shade, praise and blame justly, and ends his 
strong summary with the following words: "Even at this 
long distance of time, the instincts of loyalty and gratitude 
refuse to be overborne, and I confess that I, for one, am still 
as unredeemed that were I required to throw stones at Heinrich 
von Treitschke, I should wish my stones to be pebbles, and when 
I throw them I should want to run away." This passage does 
much credit to the sense of delicacy and the loyalty of Mr. 
Dawson. But such was not the effect produced upon my Eng- 
lish and American fellow-students who attended Treitschke's lec- 
tures at Heidelburg in 1873. 

58 



scholar and versatile a man of the world, as was 
Lord Acton, should have formed of Treitschke 
as an historian. I attended several courses of 
his lectures during the most impressionable years 
of my student life when, fresh from my American 
home, I studied at the University of Heidelburg 
from 1873-6. The effect which he then had upon 
the large number of foreign students attending 
his lectures at that University, and even upon the 
mass of South Germans, in fact upon those who 
were not purely Prussian by birth or in spirit, 
was distinctly one of antagonism. His enthus- 
iasm, his emphatic diction and violent assertive- 
ness, were all expressive of the Prussian spirit in 
its most unattractive form, and the ruthlessness 
(tactlessness would be too mild a term, as he 
would have repudiated any claims to such refined 
social virtues) with which he disregarded and 
directly offended the national or social sensibili- 
ties of many of his hearers, showed how he was 
imbued, not necessarily with the greatness, but 
certainly with the brutal force, of Bismarckian 
principles of blood and iron.^ 

To summarise the chief impression which his 
personality made upon us foreigners, I should 
say that we were all strongly impressed with the 
fact that he was not what we should call a gentle- 
man. On the other hand, I believe he himself 



( 1 ) Let me but quote one illustrative instance, though I could 
show how (with many English, American and French students 
among his pupils) he constantly made insulting, and sometimes 
grossly ignorant, remarks about their national characteristics, 
their political ideals, and even their social habits. In referring 
to the Balkan peoples, though he knew that there were several 
Bulgarian, Servian and Roumanian students in his class, he 
roared out in a voice and with gestures indicative of a mixture 
between anger and contempt: "Serben, Bulgaren and Walachen — 
und wie diese schweinetreibende Volker alle heissen mogen!" 
("Serbians, Bulgarians and Walachians and whatever else these 
swine-driving peoples may be called.") 

59 



would have accepted this stricture and would 
have gloried in the fact that he did not approve 
of such an ideal. Were he still alive he might 
himself have urged, as recently has been done — 
if the report be true — that that term, hitherto 
adopted in the vocabulary of the German lang- 
uage, should be expunged and replaced by a new 
German word ''ein Ganzermann" \ It also ap- 
peared to us, and does so to many highly qualified 
historical scholars now, that he was not a true 
historian, according to the old-established higher 
conception of that type, of which so many 
representatives have been given to the world by 
Germany. I mean those who were primarily and 
ultimately imbued with the scientific Eros, the 
almost religious striving for pure and unalloyed 
truth, the devout and humble servants of the 
goddess Wissenschaft. At best he could be called 
a publicist, swayed by the spirit of the journalist 
(whom he despised) consciously subordinating 
his search after truth and his study of the past to 
the fixed demands of a living policy ; full of what 
the Germans in science and art stigmatise as a 
grave fault, the dominance of Tendens, the fixed 
aim, prejudicial to the appreciation of truth, di- 
recting the tendency towards an immediate and 
personal goal. 

He was thus one of the many who since 1870 
have consciously endeavoured to undermine the 
highest Germanic spirit of philosophy and thor- 
oughness in science, of purity in ideal strivings — 
the real Kultur, which with its army of scholars 
and students Germany gave to the world. He 
thus became one who indirectly led to the estab- 
lishment of that Streherthum, to which I referred 
above, centred in Berlin, and percolating through 

60 



all the towns and villages of the provinces, which 
has been destroying all German idealism and 
has placed into the hands of the militaristic lead- 
ers the tools with which to effect their nefarious 
purposes. Frequently appealing to the authority 
of Bismarck in his lectures, I remember his quot- 
ing a saying of the great stateman, directly af- 
fecting the system of education in the German 
universities, and this applied to the faculties of 
jurisprudence, history and political science. 
"Ich ivill keine Kreisrichter hah en" ("I do not 
want trained magistrates, ' ' marking the first step 
in the juridical and administrative career) ; nor 
did he want pure scientists or scholars, unless 
they could be made subservient to his political 
ends ; but he did want diplomatic and skilful pol- 
iticians who could be directly used for state pur- 
poses. How different this spirit is from that in 
which the high ideals of science, scholarship and 
philosophy reigned supreme in the universities, 
where the pure, supreme and ultimate goal of uni- 
versity life were untainted by ulterior and lower 
motives — a spirit which we in England and in 
America, and even in France, admired and re- 
spected, and which for some years past we have 
been endeavouring to infuse into our own aca- 
demic life. Germany, on the other hand, has been 
and is doing her best to quench its fire and to 
exalt the lower mentality arising out of the nat- 
ural conditions of English and American enter- 
prise, the dominance of which the best minds in 
both these nations are endeavouring to counter- 
act, in part by the inspiration which came from 
the older Germany. 

This .spirit of disintegration which has steadily 
undermined the good, which Germany possessed 

61 



before 1870 — though of course great bodies and 
the very nature of the Good are slow in dying, — 
this disintegration, working more rapidly and ef- 
fectively in recent years, began about the year 
1871 and was not due only to the new school of 
militaristic leaders and of servile professors 
grouping round the Kaiser with his Real and 
Interessen-politik and his commercial material- 
ism. It was really initiated by Bismarck himself, 
in his attempt to supplement his successful for- 
eign policy by (what the future will recognise as 
the great failure in the life work of that states- 
man) his home policy. 

What was needed to Crown his great achieve- 
ment in founding the German Empire after 1870, 
was the development of a great nation within, the 
political education of the people and the consol- 
idation of the truly national German Kultur in 
its highest form as it already existed. In these 
lofty and most important aims the Great Chan- 
cellor failed. And he failed, not only because 
he gave an inadequate constitution to the German 
Empire, and because he did not establish a clear 
and efficient system of political education for the 
German nation; but also because in his personal 
conduct as the leading statesman, in the example 
which his own character and his every act could 
give to the people, directly affected by the one 
great personality who had their reverence and 
gratitude and whose every word and act became 
to the whole nation a lesson to learn and an ex- 
ample to follow, — because he repressed rather 
than developed their sense of political freedom 
and responsibility, the rights as well as the duties 
of a citizen in a modern constitutional state. The 
tone of his speeches before the Reichstag, — ^in 

62 



which he would even venture to refer to his own 
health or the state of his nerves for the consid- 
eration of those who opposed his definite political 
proposals, — were always those of the Prussian 
non-commissioned officer, wounding to the self- 
respect of the elected representatives of the peo- 
ple and ultimately crushing in them their inde- 
pendence and their training in the thoughts, 
customs and habits of parliamentary government. 
Naturally the people as a whole were a fortiori 
repressed in their political aspirations and de- 
prived of the political education which they so 
sorely needed. Only one section of the community 
withstood him ; and they, who would have formed 
the constitutional progressive section, were forced 
into the more violent forms of socialistic agita- 
tion, claiming for all practical purposes to be 
inimical to the state and to society as well, out- 
side the state in fact, if not outside of society as 
it exists. 

Still more did he contribute to the destruction 
of the ideals of pure and high thought as estab- 
lished in the academic life of Germany. The 
foundation-stone of this huge national structure, 
the very core and centre of the national life of 
the whole country, was Academic Liberty, the 
German Lehr and Lern-freiJieit, Though the uni- 
versities were state institutions, nominally under 
the Ministry of Education, they were practically 
self-governing in their own administration, and 
the election of the professors was practically in 
the hands of the body of academic teachers them- 
selves. This tradition was rudely broken by Bis- 
marck's action, when he forced his own personal 
physician, Schweninger, into academic honours. 
The professors, the independent men of science 

63 



of old, had to obey and to submit to military dis- 
cipline. 

But still more destructive, though more insid- 
ious, than this direct crushing of the spirit of 
academic independence, was the manner in which 
science was made subservient to the will of the 
state, the research and the thorough spirit of 
scientific investigation, the purity and single- 
heartedness of all the striving after truth in its 
highest and unadulterated form, which guided 
(and to a great extent still guides) the life-work 
of the German savant. These were curbed to the 
pragmatical service of a definite line of policy 
which the great Chancellor knew how to impress 
upon the whole nation and to make the dominant 
idea of all life and thought. 

During my student days this dominant thought 
was expressed by the term Germanenthum. 

Not only political science and history were de- 
filed and tainted into conformity with the de- 
mands of Bismarck's political views; but the 
studies most remote from practical politics were 
made to fall into line with the advance of the 
Teuton army. Chauvinism, which in some form 
or other may always have existed among the na- 
tions and the communities of the world who looked 
upon their neighbours as rivals or enemies, now 
took a more thoroughly scientific and philosophic 
form, and widened its basis on a broad ethnolog- 
ical and scientific foundation in the spirit of Teu- 
ton pedantry. National Chauvinism claimed an 
ethnological foundation. It was no longer the 
German State, with its history throughout the 
middle ages, a fusion of so many races constantly 
changing their territories and dwellings as they 
rushed to and fro over Central Europe, which 

64 



claimed the allegiance and love and patriotism 
of the German people. Nor was it on the ground 
of the numerous separate states and principalities 
and their variegated, almost kaleidoscopic, his- 
tory during the last centuries, which were at last, 
by the supreme and heroic effort of Bismarck, 
his predecessors and his followers, welded into 
the unity of a German Empire, welded together 
by their very diversity out of which grew the 
fructifying spirit of their potent and character- 
istic Kultur, made one by the very sufferings and 
sacrifices through which they had passed during 
centuries of cruel wars. In all this common life 
of suffering, achievement and heroism was not 
to be found the moral justification for the founda- 
tion of a German Empire; but in a racial unity 
that could be measured in terms of the dominant 
natural sciences of the day, and of the youngest, 
least developed, of them all, the conclusions of 
which we must doubt, namely, the study of eth- 
nology. The distinctive solidarity of the Teu- 
tonic race had to be established. On this unity 
of race was to rest, not only the claim for the 
unity of the German Empire, but also its separate 
and antagonistic interests in regard to other na- 
tions, its rivals and potential foes. From 1870 
and onwards it is sadly interesting to note how 
the German professors, the free upholders of 
truth and pure science, curbed their every effort 
to establish and to prove the claims of this Ger- 
manentJium. It was not only opposed to the 
Latin world, to France and to Italy (which had 
not yet become a part of the Triple Alliance), 
not only to the Slavs; but, in so far as Great 
Britain was not purely Saxon, to Great Britain 
as well. While, on the one side, Germanenthum 

65 



could thus be identified with a nation opposed to 
the Italian Papacy, on the other side it proved 
most expedient for the time to use it as a lever, 
perhaps even a bait, to be thrown to the socialists 
and to lead them to concentrate their antagon- 
ism in a single groove and so to liberate the main 
current of policy — ^against the Jews. Germane^ir- 
tJium as the supreme expression of the Teuton 
world thus stood in direct opposition to the Jews, 
the Semites. The anti-Semitic party was then 
organised. 

It mattered not that a great part of Prussia, 
and of other German states as well, could be 
shown to be of Slav origin; that the names of 
many of its greatest men should end in 'ow' and 
other Slav endings:^ that some of its leaders of 
life and thought, and even its soldiers, were of 
recent French origin; that among the foremost 
men in every department of life, from whom em- 
anated the actual German Kultur, were many of 
Jewish origin ! The modern world had to be split 
up into its pre-historic ethnical constituents by a 
most inaccurate and misleading scientific induc- 
tion, so that the modern German State should, 
not only be confirmed in its imperial unity, but 
should foster in its people an antagonism which 
should be based on physical, anatomical and 
physiological foundations, and bring them nearer 
to the animal world where the difference of 
species implies animosity. 

The response and echo to this wave of ethno- 
logical Chauvinism was soon to be heard through- 
out the whole of Europe; it aroused in France 
and in Italy the same spirit of pedantic intoler- 
ance and gave life to the Pan- Slav movement in 



(1) Treitschke is a Slav name. 

66 



Russia. Even in Great Britain there were iso- 
lated and less powerful attempts at a revival of 
the Anglo-Saxon spirit, which in Freeman and 
others took the less violent and more poetic form 
of the antiquary's and historian's love for his 
own country. But in Germany, during the whole 
of the period preceding our own (though it bore 
some beneficent fruit in the growing study of 
early Germanic literature and language) history, 
philology and ethnology were baised and vitiated 
by the more or less conscious desire to provide a 
scientific basis for the unity and dominance of 
the Germanic spirit. Perhaps in the future, when 
the history of the study of Ethnology is written, 
this period in German research will be character- 
ised as the ' Indo-Germanic wave.' The last and 
most characteristic — though certainly caricatured 
summary of all these efforts — the swan-song of 
Germanenthum has been produced by a writer 
of English birth, Houston Chamberlain, in ''Die 
Grundlagen des XIX JahrJiunderts."^ Accord- 
ing to him even Christ during his sojourn on 
earth was not a Semite, but embodied the Ger- 
manic spirit. It is interesting and suggestive to 
note (and I can personally vouch for the accuracy 
of the statement) that this book was considered 
by the Kaiser the most important work of modern 
times, and that it no doubt has furnished him with 
the historical and scientific ground upon which his 
political aspirations are based. 

Thus the foundations for this great structure 



(1) An English translation of this book has since appeared 
w^ith and introduction by Lord Eedesdale. A more amateurish 
and unbalanced piece of historical generalisation than this book 
cannot be found in the whole of historical literature. Lord Redes- 
dale's introduction, besides bestowing most fulsome praise upon 
the author, summarises and compresses these over-generalisations 
and thus exaggerates all the faults of this work. 

67 



of Chauvinism, in a generally theoretical and 
specially ethnological form, were laid since 1871 
by the policy of Bismarck, and on these have been 
erected the vast and complicated structure of ac- 
tive militarism pervading all forms of national 
life. It has left its stamp upon the whole spirit 
of scientific research. It has consciously directed 
the efforts and the conduct of the whole bureauc- 
racy, not only in the foreign office, but in the 
home departments as well. It has penetrated and 
directly modified the varied and huge machinery 
of their growing commerce and industry; it has 
even saturated the very soil of the land and 
furthered the interests, the financial prosperity 
and the social vitality, of the classes who live by 
agriculture. There is not a single aspect of Ger- 
man life which has not been shaped or essentially 
modified during the last forty years by this dom- 
inant Chauvinistic impulse, steadied and made 
permanent by calculated pedantic forethought. 

The climax, however, was reached when the pol- 
icy, out of which it grew and on which it fed, was 
directly used by the State, and found ready to 
hand the most demoralising and depraved ma- 
chinery, another one of the great inheritances of 
Bismarck's successful state-craft, arising di- 
rectly out of the victories of 1871. This has per- 
haps more than any other factor, directly tended 
to vitiate to the very core the national life of the 
German people, and has even contaminated to 
some extent the workings of the Foreign Offices 
of every one of the Western Powers. This inher- 
itance is the so-called Reptilien-fonds, the money 
set apart out of the milliards taken from France, 
for secret service in every form. It has been 
used not only in the famous, or rather infamous, 

68 



Press-bureau of the Wilhelmstrasse, which di- 
rectly gained control of the German press by 
bribery and corruption or 'subvention'; and, as 
we also know now, of the foreign press in every 
nook and corner of the globe as well. Not only 
was, and is it used for every form of spying at 
home; but it has established a band of secret 
agents spreading over the whole civilised, and 
even the uncivilised, world to further the ends of 
the Berlin Foreign Office by traducing into trea- 
son the citizen subjects of other countries, friend- 
ly allies, and actual or potential antagonists. 
And. as the World-policy, the Real-politik , grew 
so did this nefarious activity extend beyond the 
great powers and rivals themselves, to the col- 
onies and dependencies and neighbouring peoples 
or lands which, in the future might turn to be 
troublesome enemies to any one of the Powers. 
We have presented to our horrified moral con- 
science the picture of a huge web of lying and 
intrigue, sedition and treachery, at which even 
a Machiavelli might have shuddered with horror. 
And all these evil spirits are now invoked under 
the banner and in the name of 'Kultur'\ Even 
in Bismarck's lifetime the central direction of 
these forces which were to establish German Kul- 
tur must have been most complicated and puz- 
zling; for every country, even that of the allies, 
required curbing and perverting into the •course 
of German Chauvinism. Treaties had to be en- 
sured by counter-treaties, as in the famous case 
of the Russian, and Austrian agreements. But 
since then, with the full consolidation and the 
conscious formulation of Welt-politik and Real- 
politih, the ends as well as the means of German 
policy have become so varied and confusingly 

69 



universal, that not a single country or a single 
people, or any of their dependencies remained, 
which they were not forced to consider as po- 
tential enemies and for which their Reptilien-fonds 
could not furnish the means of demoralising ac- 
tivity. From this horrible and grotesque point 
of view of modern politics, which country could 
Germany fail to consider its actual or potential 
enemy, including even its own allies'? Contem- 
porary history has shown, and will still more 
show in the immediate future, that Italy could 
not be looked upon as a friend.^ I myself had it 
enjoined upon me from the very highest authority 
in German affairs some years ago in reference to 
a peaceful scientific propaganda, that ''Italy can- 
not be trusted." There remains Austria. But 
the Dual Monarchy, with its motto Divide et 
impera, is made up of so many separate races and 
interests and parties representing them, that a 
most exacting sphere of enterprise and activity 
was constantly and continuously furnished to the 
directors of the Reptilien-fonds, to further the 
Teuton claims, to repress both the Magyar and 
the Slav elements, so that ultimately, through the 
dominance of Teuton Austria on the road to the 
East, straight through the Balkans to Salonica, 
and by rail along the Bagdad Railway, when the 
Austrian and the Turkish Empires should be- 
come a thing of the past, the German Weltreich 
should push its way towards the East, and swiftly 
enter its course of encircling the world. Imagine, 
what definite corruption from both, what huge 
sums of money it spent successfully to supersede 
the British and Russian preponderance at Con- 
stantinople in the time of Abdul Hamid, and 



(1) This was written before Italy joined the Entente Powers. 

70 



then to overcome the effects of the crushing 
blow to German policy when that tyrant's rule 
made way for a violent and liberal movement 
on the part of the Young Turks, whose initial 
Teuton antagonism must have been aggravated 
by Austrian annexations, leading to a boycott 
of everything Austrian — until finally again Teu- 
ton influence at Constantinople became so pow- 
erful, that it could force the Turks into an 
alliance and into a disastrous war! Even their 
allies thus became their enemies in time of 
false and perfidious peace, and their action was 
directly destructive of national loyalty, of truth 
and honesty within the realms of the friendly 
country. And as for all the other states, their 
avowed rivals or enemies, actual documents 
have revealed the monstrous universal diffus- 
ion, their poisonous activity throughout the whole 
world civilised and uncivilised, even to the re- 
motest regions of the East and West, the North 
and South. Think for a moment of the continuous 
and persistent moral degeneracy which such 
chauvinistic and militaristic policy implies and 
how it directly contravenes the moral principles 
and the moral consciousness upon which modern 
civilized life rests ! 

Let me pause here and show how dangerous 
may be the exaggeration of that literary and his- 
torical virtue of intellectual sympathy embodied 
in the fervent appeal of the late Professor Cramb. 
For he exalts the spirit of war on grounds which 
approach dangerously near to national Chauvin- 
ism, such as has dragged Glermany from its moral 
and intellectual heights of the past down to the 
very depths of the diabolical perfidy of the pres- 
ent. We may admit that every great act of self- 

71 



sacrifice, individual and collective, must, from 
some one aspect, produce something good and 
something admirable, especially when raised 
through its very mass into heroic dimensions. 
The uprising of millions of people willing to risk 
their lives for any cause has in itself something 
inspiring and points to an ennobling element in 
human nature. Great masses of treasure and 
blood cannot be expended without producing some 
possible good. Institutions and charities that 
dispose of, and spend great sums must do some 
good ; but the question before us always is: 'Is 
there any due proportion between the expendi- 
ture and the results; and what are the evils that 
arise in the wake of the good we may admit has 
been effected?' There is hardly a single institu- 
tion, or charity, or business, which disposes of 
large sums from which some benefit is not derived 
by somebody. But it may be found that the pro- 
portion of such good is ridiculously small; that 
the evils which it creates or perpetuates are dis- 
proportionately large, and that the employment 
of such treasures by a more rational or more 
moral institution or organisation is made impos- 
sible because of the existence of what is inferior 
or almost wholly bad. We are bound then to call 
such institutions, charities or businesses bad and 
must reform or destroy them, root and branch, 
and erect in their stead institutions expressing 
the rational and moral convictions of our own 
days and conditions of life. 

Where is to be found in modern warfare the 
nobility in outlook or in practice? See what it 
engenders before the actual war breaks out, in 
the preparation for hostilities, not only in the 
concentration and the hypertrophy of the arma- 

72 



ment industry and traffic, the evils of which in 
our economic and social life have been so amply 
and convincingly shown by many able writers; 
but by the activity of home and foreign policy 
subservient to the militaristic ideals, as I have 
sketched them in the case of Germany. Consider 
the degradation of all the fundamental virtues 
upon which the moral conscience of civilised 
people rest, the sense of truth and honesty and 
loyalty for all those concerned, for all who con- 
sciously lead, and for all the mass of the people 
who semi-consciously or unconsciously follow ! Is 
there anything heroic to be found in such duplicity 
clustering round the poisonous plant of financial 
interests, of gold and silver, of money in its vilest 
form and uses? 

As to war in itself, though there be numerous 
instances of individual and collective heroism, 
even of chivalry, consider what this war of in- 
genious and stupendously effective machinery 
for destroying life, of broken pledges, of decep- 
tion and trickery, means! Are not the heroic 
valour and self-sacrifice entirely submerged in 
the cruelty and deceit of modern warfare so that 
the total result is complete dissolution of all moral 
fibre? We need not invoke the contraventions of 
the plighted word given at The Hague by Ger- 
many when unfortified towns are bombarded, as- 
phyxiating gases used, and Lusitanias sunk. It 
is enough to realise what emotions and passions 
are stirred up in battle in the breasts of people 
who were presumably normally moral human 
beings in time of peace. I cannot do better than 
to give a passage from the '^ J 'Accuse" by a Ger- 
man writer to bring home to the imagination of 



73 



readers the real influence of actual warfare. He 
says (pp. 300-302) : 

"A very interesting contribution to the solu- 
tion of the question, whether war develops the 
noblest virtues of man [Fieldmarshal Moltke] " 
or whether it does not on the contrary "produce 
more bad men than it removes" [Kant]? — is 
furnished by the account of a battle published 
in the TageUatt of Jauer on Oct. 18, 1914. The 
author of this account is the non-commissioned of- 
ficer Klemt of the 1st Company, 154th Regiment 
and his statements are vouched for and subscribed 
to by the Company-Commander, Lieut, von Niem. 
The heading of this letter in the newspaper is: 
"A Day of Honour for our Regiment, 24 Sep- 
tember, 1914." The account deserves — as a 
human, or rather a bestial, document — to be 
printed in extenso; but I regret that space will 
only permit me to give extracts : 

"Already we are discovering the first French- 
men. They are shot down from the trees like 
squirrels, and are warmly welcomed below with 
the butt-end of rifles and bayonets ; they no longer 
need a doctor; we are no longer fighting against 
honest foes ; but tricky robbers. With a jump we 
are over the clearing — here ! there ! in the hedges 
they are crouching ; now, on to them ! No quarter 
is given. Standing free, at most kneeling, we 
shoot away, nobody troubles about cover. We 
come to a hollow: in masses dead and wounded 
red-breeches lie about; the wounded are clubbed 
or stabbed to death; for we already know that 
these rascals will fire at us from behind. There 
lies a Frenchman stretched out at full length, his 
face to the ground ; but he is only shamming death. 
A kick from a lusty Musketier teaches him that 
we are there. He turns and begs for his life ; but 

74 



already he is nailed to the earth with the words : 
"Do you see your B . . ., this is how our bodkins 
prick." Beside me an uncanny cracking sound 
comes from the blows of the but-end of a rifle 
which one of our 154 's rains on a French bald- 
head. Prudently he uses a French rifle for the 
purpose, not to smash his own. Some of us, 
especially tender-hearted, finish the wounded 
Frenchmen off with a charitable bullet, others 
strike and stab as much as they know. Bravely 
our enemies fought, they were crack regiments 
we had before us. They allowed us to come on 
from 30 to 10 metres, then it certainly was too 
late ... At the entrance of the watch-huts they 
lie, lightly and seriously wounded, vainly begging 
for quarter, but our good Musketiers save the 
fatherland the expensive maintenance of so many 
enemies." 

"The account concludes with the picture of the 
tired troops lying down to sleep after the "blood- 
work": The god of dreams paints for some of 
them a lovely picture. A prayer of thanks on our 
lips we slept on towards the coming day." 

I must add the further comments of the author 
of ^' J' Accuse" : "The most horrible features of 
this account are not only the incidents narrated, 
but almost more than these the brutal naivete with 
which they are represented as feats of heroism, 
especially acknowledged by superior officers and 
published in the most prominent part of the of- 
ficial newspaper of the district. It is possible 
that brutalities were committed by the other side 
as well. When the beast in man is set free it is 
not astonishing that bestialities should be com- 
mitted. But I have sought in vain in the foreign 
press for the publication of such 'heroic deeds.' 
That, after such murderous work, one can sit 

75 



down in cold blood and report such low horrors 
to one's fellow-citizens at home, one's friends, 
to one's own wife and children, makes the whole 
affair infinitely sadder than in itself it already 
is. Of course the 'prayer of thanks' to God 
could not be omitted from the German battle- 
report. His Eoyal Highness, Prince Oscar of 
Prussia, had to be cited by Sergeant Klemt as 
admirer of the 'heroic action': ''With these 
Grenadiers and 154 's one can storm Hell itself," 
the Prince exclaimed and assured the two regi- 
ments that they were worthy of the name, "The 
King's Own Brigade." The. Jauer Eeport 
unites — as is the case in Veterinary Handbooks 
where a horse is drawn showing all possible dis- 
eases — all the "noblest virtues" which War 
can produce and must produce: Bestiality, 
bragging, false piety, etc. Whether "the 
world would degenerate and would be lost in Ma- 
terialism" if these qualities remained undevel- 
oped, I leave to the decision of the wise." 

Did not the men who risked their lives when 
aviation started so as to develop such an in- 
vention for the use and advancement of the world 
at large, did they not show courage indomita- 
ble — the aes triplex and more than triplex — of 
which the soldier marching to attack shows no 
loftier or more self-sacrificing form? nor doctors 
and nurses in the sick room ; the researchers who 
on their own person make dangerous experiments 
for the benefit of mankind; every policeman on 
his beat ; every one who day by day curbs his in- 
stincts of selfishness and greed out of due re- 
gard to the claims of his fellow men, — do these 
not give ample opportunities for the development 
of altruistic enthusiasm? When we look forward 

76 



to the day when, consciously brought up to a 
higher level by a universal education based upon 
the ideals of modern times, not only will the rich 
willingly give their larger quota of taxes to 
further the needs of the state and of an advanc- 
ing society, but even the poorer and the poorest 
will directly pay their contributions to the state 
so that others should be saved from hunger and 
thirst. Then will the sick, the halt, the needy be 
comforted, the aged live out their lives without 
anxiety for the morrow, the honest unemployed 
no longer wander aimlessly along the roads. All 
great causes of common humanity, may then be 
fostered by the immediate sacrifice of the indi- 
vidual. Consider also the effects of war, 
(whether it end in victory or defeat) upon those 
who have engaged in it, upon all those who in 
realitj^ or in imagination have passed through 
this hell of internecine bloodshed; when 'Thou 
shalt not kill' as a fundamental tenet for all 
civilised life has lost all constraining meaning 
through the constant repercussion of the slaugh- 
ter of thousands, fathers of children, sons of par- 
ents, and husbands of wives ; when to deceive and 
to spy and to try every trick that may mislead 
and bring one nearer to a destructive goal be- 
comes a virtue! Where is the heroism? It is 
noble to be a patriot, nobler than to limit one's 
affections to one's country, or one's village; it is 
even nobler to show active affection for one's vil- 
lage than to concentrate it only upon one 's family. 
A good son, a devoted father, a considerate broth- 
er, is surely nobler than the pure egoist who is 
only absorbed in his own life and desires. But, 
the man who encourages himself to hate and to 
slay his fellowman, not because he is vile or be- 

77 



cause he endangers his own existence, but be- 
cause he lives in another country and talks a 
different language ; whose feelings for humanity, 
whose ideals for the human race, whose striving 
after divine perfection throughout the world are 
not only limited to his own country and the people 
living in it, but who develops active and violent 
antagonism towards all people and all things 
beyond this narrow range, such a man cannot be 
called a patriot ! Patriotism then turns to Chau- 
vinism ; it no longer is the love of one 's own coun- 
try and one 's own people, but the hatred of others. 
There is nothing ideal in war, certainly not in 
modern warfare ; and, though every one of us 
must feel that it is our duty and our privilege to 
fight for our country and to offer up our lives 
when our national existence is in 'danger, we 
should do it because it is our duty, as a means 
to safeguard what is best and most holy in our 
national existence, but we are never to turn this 
means into the ultimate end of civilised existence. 
We should go to the operating table with com- 
posure and fortitude when it may dispel disease, 
prolong our life so that we can continue to sup- 
port those who depend upon us; but we can not 
consider the torturing and maiming of our bodies 
as a supreme end of our physical existence. The 
patriot must never allow himself to be carried 
away by the hysterical enthusiasm of the pane- 
gyrists of war; he must not admit Bellona into 
the cycle of his divinities! Every patriot 
must beware lest he become a Chauvinist 
who learns to hate the stranger so intensely and 
effectively as to lose all power of loving; 
and that the absorbing intensity of his hatred 
will lead him at last to loathe his neighbour and 

78 



grow cold towards his wife and children. For 
this is the end of the doctrine of hate. 

Now this militaristic Chauvinism has found the 
most fertile field for its growth on German soil. 
No other country and no other people, certainly 
not England and the English, could show condi- 
tions so favourable. Perhaps until the ''Ger- 
man scare" began some years ago, no people 
were freer from this antagonistic attitude to- 
wards those of other nationalities than were the 
English. They were hospitable in spirit and hos- 
pitality became a national characteristic in every 
layer of society. Definite human envy and jeal- 
ousy may unavoidably have arisen and shown 
themselves, especially where certain trades or 
larger groupings of occupations may have suf- 
fered by the sudden intrusion of more or less 
alien bodies in definite localities, whether they 
were 'foreign,' whether they came from abroad 
or from Scotland into England, or from the 
neighbouring town or county. But Englishmen 
were ever ready to receive, and even to acknowl- 
edge the qualities, in some cases even the super- 
iority in definite lines and characteristics, of 
those who came among them from foreign parts. 
Perhaps it may have been due to an underlying 
consciousness of our own merits, if not of our 
own ultimate superiority, which made us indif- 
ferent to those incitements of envy and jealousy. 
If so, such self-confidence, even if at times un- 
founded in fact, is not a grave national vice. But 
the truth remains that we were thus — and let 
us hope will continue so in the future — the least 
Chauvinistic of modern civilised peoples. Of all 
peoples manifesting this disease to a greater or 



79 



lesser degree, the Germans were certainly fore- 
most. 

The main reasons for its growth on German 
soil are to be found in two national character- 
istics; the one is the prevalence and intensity of 
envy as a national characteristic ; the other is the 
absence, from the national education in all its 
aspects, of the sense of Fair Play, which might 
have been the one element exercising a salutary 
counteracting influence to the spirit of envy. The 
Germans have their idea of honour, they even have 
their courts of honour and the duel, especially in 
military circles; but these are not effective in 
modern life to counteract envy and to foster gen- 
erosity. On the contrary, within such social 
groups, ruled by such courts of honour and ap- 
pealing to the duel as the arbiter, they developed 
truculence which is most directly opposed to the 
spirit of Fair Play. Militarism in its effect upon 
the nation counteracted the establishment and the 
rule of Fair Play, until at Zabern and after, the 
official Seal of State was stamped upon the pre- 
vailing power of the bully. One of the curses of 
militarism is, that, while it to a certain extent 
democratises the people collected together in mil- 
itary service to the state, by the establishment of 
fixed ranks and gradations, the higher grades 
having unquestioned authority over the lower, it 
naturally leads to bullying and weakens the sense 
of social fairness and justice among the whole 
population. 

If we were to attempt to single out, among 
the numerous causes which have led to this war, 
one primary and underlying factor in the national 
character of the Germans which, more than any 
other, has led to this catastrophe, it undoubtedly 

80 



is Envy. It has almost become a platitude to say 
that people are most prone to ascribe to others 
the faults which they have themselves; and we 
need not therefore be astonished to hear it fre- 
quently stated of late that England's antagon- 
ism towards Germany, and which lead to the 
war, was her jealousy, and consequent fear of 
German rivalry in commerce and in political 
power. It is quite possible that among individ- 
aals and among certain groups of people, compe- 
tition, and rivalry, may lead to jealousy, and that, 
as human nature goes, English trades and oc- 
cupations which have suffered from German com- 
petition may thus have produced jealousy in 
those suffering from this competition. These 
cases, natural though they be, are limited and 
isolated and certainly have not sufficed to pro- 
duce a national characteristic or a movement, 
which in any way would have driven the country 
into war. I venture to repeat that there is hardly 
a nation among the civilised people as ready, on 
the whole, to welcome the foreigner, admit his 
qualities and, by the exercise of the supreme na- 
tional virtue of fair-play, to counteract all the 
impulses of national jealousy. Let us only hope 
and pray that the results of this great war, the 
over-stimulation of the sense of antagonism and 
of hatred towards others, the suspicion of the 
foreigner in moments of great national danger, 
may not counteract his comparative freedom 
from that most dangerous and lowest of national 
vices, and may not end in encouraging the growth 
of national Chauvinism among us. The symp- 
toms of such a danger are rife at this moment 
when the nerves of the people are shaken into 



81 



abnormal irritability by the constant pressure of 
suffering and anxiety. 

But with the Germans the national .vice of 
envy has been greatly stimulated by the recogni- 
tion of the fact that, in spite of their rapid and 
stupendous advance in every direction within 
the short period since their victory over the 
French, they have not as yet acquired a Co- 
lonial Empire such as Great Britain possesses; 
that, owing to what might be considered the ac- 
cident of historical fate, Germany arrived too 
late after the colonial possessions throughout the 
world had already been divided among all the 
other peoples. This one fact, though it may nat- 
urally lead to regret and sorrow in the heart of 
the patriotic German who loves his Country and 
believes in its great mission in the world, and 
though it may move us to understand and sym- 
pathize, does not justify the envy and hatred 
towards Great Britain nor other criminal action 
which has plunged the whole world in misery. 

Though we can understand the conditions which 
might create envy or encourage it in the hearts 
of the Germans, we recognize that they have fal- 
len upon the fertile soil of a national vice which 
the Germans, as Germans, possess to the highest 
degree. As such it does not only turn collectively 
outwards towards other nations, but it under- 
mines and disturbs the whole inner social life of 
the nation. This fact is recognised by their own 
thinkers and statesmen and appears to have been 
their ruling vice in the early days of their racial 
ancestors when, as is noted by Prince Bulow,^ 
Tacitus tells us that "the Germans destroyed 



(1) Bismarck referred to the same passage in Tacitus and 
also considered envy a national characteristic. 

82 



their liberators, the Cherusci, propter invidiam." 
The Imperial Chancellor, who knew his people 
well, says of them -.^ ' ' Just as one of the greatest 
German virtues, the sense of discipline, finds 
special and disquieting expression in the social 
democratic movement, so does our old vice, 
envy." I remember that one of the wisest of 
the German diplomats, for some time German 
Ambassador in London, singled out this vice as 
being the national fault of his countrymen. Envy 
necessarily produces hatred. The Hebrew com- 
posite word Kino-Sino combines envy with hate 
in one word and points to this causal process in 
the psychology of man. For it means envy- 
hatred, the hatred which follows upon envy. And 
when this passion penetrates into the national 
system of Chauvinism, intensifies its violence, and 
directs its animosity, we can well understand the 
otherwise singular phenomenon of the rapidity 
with which the all-absorbing antagonism and 
hatred of Russia at the beginning of the war, 
then held up as the one supreme cause and jus- 
tification of the national uprising, should within 
a short time have disappeared from the public 
press and the consciousness of the German peo- 
ple, and have been entirely supplanted by the 
hatred of England, which finds its supreme ex- 
pression in the Hymn of Hate. This ''Hymn" 
has since been officially established as the Na- 
tional War Hymn by a German prince and mili- 
tary leader. This is, by the way, a very striking 
instance of the ready servility of the press and 
the effectiveness with which the Press-Bureau 
can manipulate the public opinion of a whole 
nation. In a few months, or even weeks, the Rus- 



(2) "Imperial Germcmy" p. 184. 

83 



sian 'bogey' and the old French animosity were 
completely dropped and, at the word of command, 
were at once superseded by another "Battle Cry" 
throughout the whole nation culminating in the 
most passionate and violent hatred that even the 
history of barbaric periods can recall. But, 
though for the time being, the antagonism to the 
Slav may have superseded the ingrained histor- 
ical animosity to the French, from whom they 
suffered so much in Napoleonic days, both these 
national antagonisms but thinly covered the 
hatred towards their 'racial' kinsmen and former 
allies because this hatred was based upon, and 
intensified by, the envy sa ingrained in their na- 
tures. 

No doubt some disappointment and the frustra- 
tion of monstrously stupid plans may have had 
something to do with the momentary intensifica- 
tion of their hatred of England. They may have 
been sufficiently blind or unwise to assume that, 
in spite of the gross breach of Belgian neutrality, 
and in spite of the recognised fact that some 
agreement existed between England and France, 
we would stand aside without lifting a finger and 
see Belgium crushed, her liberties trampled upon, 
and France crushed as well. I do not think that 
England has ever been more grossly insulted 
than by the assumption — quite apart from the 
Belgian crime — that she would follow only her in- 
stincts for peace, national security and prosper- 
ity, and would not stand by her moral agreement 
with France to shield her in any case of unjus- 
tifiable aggression. Whatever the exact legal 
definition of this entente cordiale may have been, 
an entente cordiale did exist ; and if England had 
stood aside, she would have merited the ridicu- 

84 



lously unjust epithet of Perfide Albion, and the 
world would justly have stigmatised us as a 'na- 
tion of shop keepers. ' Whatever disappointment, 
and such disappointment could only be felt by 
those mllfully blinded by the expectation of utter 
subservience of everybody and everything to their 
own interests, may have been felt by the Germans 
and thus intensified their passion against Great 
Britain, the real cause is to be found in their na- 
tional vice of envy. 

As the spirit of Chauvinism develops the pas- 
sion of hatred in the people collectively towards 
other nations, and as we realise at the present 
moment how this is concentrated upon ourselves, 
this passion manifests itself also as a dominant 
factor in their whole internal life. If we take 
their characteristic modern poetry as an expres- 
sion of popular sentiment, we can find many an 
instance of a most flagrant kind in which hatred 
inspires the lyric imagination of their poets. We 
search in vain in the contemporary literature of 
other nations and in our own for such expres- 
sions. To find them at all in ours we must 
look to the depiction, by an appeal of historical 
sympathy, of other ages and other conditions of 
life, in which hatred as a passion is forcibly con- 
veyed in dramatic lyrics, such as some of the 
poems of Robert Browning. We can thus recall 
how that poet imagines himself a tyrant who 
finds one independent spirit blocking his way and 
whom he can not subdue.^ Or again where, '*In 
a Spanish Cloister," he shows us the narrowing 
life with its compressed passion of jealousy when 
monks are herded together and personal antip- 

(1) The poem is called Instcms Tyrannus, 

85 



athy fans the fire of hatred in the breast of one 
of them for another. But we have nothing in 
modern literature like the notorious Hymn of 
Hate evoked by this war, and nothing in daily life 
like that powerful poem of Liliencron's, the ex- 
ponent of the spirit of modern Germany, which 
expresses as a dream the most intense personal 
hatred. It is called ' Unsurmountable Antip- 
athy,' and describes the almost animal hatred 
felt by two people, causing them to spring at each 
other's throats like wild beasts. 

But this hatred springing from envy — and it is 
to this that Prince Biilow refers in the passage 
quoted — is especially marked in Germany by the 
envy of one class towards another, leading to 
burning hatred between them. It is only natural 
that those who are poor and ill-favoured should 
covet the blessings of those upon whom fortune 
has copiously showered her gifts. This is but 
human and has existed in all times, and it exists 
with us as well. The recognition of such inequali- 
ties in the possession of the good things of this 
world may make socialists or even anarchists of 
us. However, fortunately for us, we cannot say 
that resentment and envy of the better fortune of 
our neighbours have led to manifest antagonism 
between classes in the daily life of our people. It 
may be because with us the rich have been more 
manifestly conscious of the duties which their 
better fortune imposes upon them, and the poor 
are fairer-minded and more generous of heart. 
It may also be due to our free political institu- 
tions which, through countless ages have given to 
every man his chance before the law and his op- 
portunity of expressing his will and pursuing 
his interests by constitutional means in the gov- 

86 



eminent of the country. No doubt also our 
national sports and pastimes have effectively 
brought us all together in common games and 
sports which rest upon the spirit of fair-play as 
the foundation of all British sport and athletics. 
I can recall that even during the heat of the Na- 
tionalist agitation and resentment about 1886, 
when the peasant classes in Ireland were filled 
with the strongest hatred of the landlords and 
the wealthier classes, that while riding to or from 
hounds, the sportsmanlike spirit was nevertheless 
too strong in the peasants one met, and provoked 
a smile or a twinkle in the eye of the brother 
sportsman to be found in the poorest labourer 
and venting itself in a cheery greeting and the 
question: "Had you good sport, and did you 
catch him?" Whatever the cause, the fact re- 
mains, that the actual life of the British people 
in town and country has not to any marked de- 
gree been vitiated by the spirit of class antagon- 
ism and of social envy. On the other hand, I 
can also recall how, while riding through some 
woods in Prussia with my German hostess, I was 
struck by the resentment and the scowl in the 
eyes of the labouring people and the peasantry 
we met, which seemed to express clearly the 
hatred they felt towards all who were possessed 
of more wealth; until, passing through a village, 
we were met by a shower of stones from the boys 
who looked upon us as representatives of the fav- 
oured classes. 

Jealousy is unfortunately a rudimentary pas- 
sion in man's breast and may exist wherever 
there are human beings congregated together. 
But in Germany the Brodneid, the jealousy of 
trade and professional envy, for which they have 

87 



invented so definite a term, is most rampant. It 
permeates all classes, in themselves regulated by 
bureaucratic gradations of rank, and sets one 
class against another. Even in the highest and 
most enlightened spheres, where we might least 
expect it, owing to the atmosphere pervading reg- 
ions of lofty thought, occupation and habits of 
mind, such as in the scientific world, this spirit 
has of late years encroached. It has disfigured 
the pure and noble type of the German scholar 
and scientist who, though fortunately still sur- 
viving in some splendid instances of a simple life, 
is gradually receding and making room for the 
new type of the militaristic Streher in science and 
in learning. The temptations of profit are too 
strong in a world consciously ruled by commer- 
cialism in which from Kaiser and Reichs-Chan- 
cellor onwards ReaUPolitik and Interessen-Po- 
litik are preached to dispel the supposed pre- 
valence of idealism or dreamy Utopianism which 
have long since departed from among the German 
people. These temptations and the possibilities 
of power coming from wealth have completely al- 
tered the spirit of the old German savant, the 
Teufelsdroeck of Carlyle, whom we read about 
and admired in our youth. And thus in the lab- 
oratories and in the "seminars" where the free 
interchange of ideas and of work, where the spirit 
of unity in one supreme endeavour bound the 
commilitones of former days into one serried rank 
of a scientific army advancing boldly towards the 
smnmit of truth, — these have all given way to a 
petty and envious spirit of seclusion and of dis- 
trust among the workers, jealously guarding each 
new act that might lead to important material 
results, until the rivalry and struggle for priority 

88 



becomes the dominant passion of the workers, the 
modern successors to the noble and generous- 
spirited men of old. We saw it coming after 1870, 
when, for some years, there were signs of dis- 
content with the old order of things, leading to 
the prevalent pessimism of that period. I en- 
deavoured to define it in 1878 in an article on 
"The Social Origin of Nihilism and Pessimism in 
Germany" ; but ventured to hope that it would 
tend to a more healthy change and revival. In 
that article I said '?- 

' ' The German 's nature is essentially and incon- 
testably an idealistic one. Idealism is an essential 
coefficient of his well-being; rob him of this, and 
he will always feel its want. Everywhere our 
German finds himself repulsed in his innermost 
longings. We have seen how it is as to family, 
society, and woman. What aspect, does the inner 
man present on this point? His idealism is soon 
cut off by stern reality. The young man who 
formerly lived from hand to mouth, happy with 
the honour paid him, now experiences, without 
such compensation, the mean and depressing 
cares for bread which life from hand to mouth 
must necessarily bring. The romantic age has 
passed, when youths walk about with long flowing 
locks and threadbare coats, and so entered even 
the princely-drawing-room, respected in spite of 
their nonconformity, or even perhaps because of 
it. Formerly a young man 's poverty brought him 
respect, and such a delicious vain self-content- 
ment. He had no money, nor did he wish for any ; 
it would soil his philosophical or poetical hands. 
He had enough to eat and drink and live on; 
and was he not beloved by the fair-haired, blue- 
eyed, dreamy Marguerite ! When age drew on he 

(1) The Nineteenth Century Review — April, 1878. 
89 



became a ' philister, ' and, either as a small official 
in some little town, or as a professor or a libra- 
rian, lie lived, quietly on with his wife and family, 
and revelled in the luxury of the recollections of 
his youth : his drooping spirits were revived, and 
the material cares cast off, as then by facts, so 
now by the remembrance of them. 

Such was the Elysian life of the German thirty 
years ago, and he was happy. In his cries and 
lamentations against political institutions and 
social states, one could always trace the inner 
self-content. He was perhaps not satisfied with 
his surroundings, but he was satisfied with him- 
self. At every moment the feu sacre burst forth 
in a flame of youthful poetical eccentricity, Hegel- 
ian fanciful speculation, or political martyrdom; 
but in himself there dwelt the sweetest harmony. 
His imprecations were directed against that life, 
but not against life in general. The Wertherian 
melancholy was only adopted for its aesthetically 
beautiful, dark cloak. He, if we may use the word, 
had lived himself into that melancholy, because 
he admired it, but it did not spring from those 
deep physical and social conditions from which 
the modern melancholy springs. His romantic 
lamentations and invectives were the outbursts 
of a too great energy and vital force, not the 
apathetic reasonings of today's pessimist. He 
felt Weltschmerz; our pessimist professes to be 
indifferent. He pointed out the causes of his 
woe, for they lay not in himself. He was like 
the philosopher who says, 'That is not the way to 
cognition,' and not like the sceptic, who says, 
'There is no way to cognition.' He was what 
Carlyle would call a 'worshipper of sorrow,* who 
waged internecine warfare with the ' Time Spirit, ' 
while the other, our pessimist, combats against 
the whole spirit, because he feels himself a child 



90 



of his time. The misanthrope loves man and 
hates men. 

How different is it at present from what the 
romantic idealist's life was then ! The admiration 
of the poor, thread-bare-coated poet or philos- 
opher has disappeared. What was formerly a 
source of pride is now the opposite. The writer 
himself knows a German poet of great worth and 
repute, who is not treated by society with the 
honour due to him, because he is not in the posi- 
tion to offer expensive hospitality to his friends, 
while others, acknowledged to be smaller, are the 
lions of the daj^ Today, young idealist, your 
genius will not suffice. You must be a business 
man, and make money, and wear a new coat, and 
cut your hair short like everyone else, or you will 
be laughed at; for a schwdrmer is out of fash- 
ion. This kills the very idealism which he needs. 
He finds all romance ridiculed. Like Hamlet, he 
is not understood by his surroundings, and so 
becomes indifferent towards the outer world, a 
despiser of mankind, as Schopenhauer was. 
Whither, in his distress, does he fly with his 
idealism? Not to his home, nor to his family, 
nor to his maiden, for he has them not. Into him- 
self ! Here he buries all his treasures. Here there 
is no Griinderschivindel, no insolence of office, no 
law's delay: here he who was wont to float on 
the high paths of idealism need not stoop down 
and pick up the tiny piece of copper that lies in 
the dust on the roadside, and that buys bread. 
Here he is lord, and he revels in the feeling: 
* everything is bad; only I am good (for he who 
can see the bad must stand outside it).' This is 
probably, unknown to themselves, the basis of all 
their pessimist reasonings. Pessimism is the 
highest stage of Romanticism. Only he is nihilist 
who has done away with all the desires of life, 

91 



who has relinquished everything, because to him 
everything must be nothing. No one is more in 
need of fulness than he who feels the universal 
emptiness. No one is more in need of the world 
than he who weeps for it or inveighs against it. 
The only true nihilist is the indifferent and the 
laugher, the hlase and the satirist; but the pes- 
simist is the scliwdrmer par excellence. Both 
Optimism and Pessimism are, so to say, forms of 
motion, while Nihilism is stagnation. Optimism 
and Pessimism are like plus and minus, while 
nihilism is the only zero. ' ' 

Since 1878 the commercial spirit has made still 
further strides in its predominance throughout 
the whole life of the German people. Practically 
it means the desire for wealth, the greed of 
money, the realisation of the power of money. 
The Real and Interessen Politik, preached by the 
rulers, writ large on the national banner of the 
people, claiming national expansion in the world 
to increase the material wealth, and fostering the 
envy and hatred of those more fortunate in the 
possession of such a world empire, and above 
all the hatred of England. These have contrib- 
uted to the materialisation of the German spirit. 
I remember how astonished I was, some sixteen 
or eighteen years ago, at an answer I received 
from a German prince, who had been sent to 
study for a time at one of our great English uni- 
versities. I asked him what he would choose to 
be, if he had the power of effecting his choice di- 
rectly; what was his ideal of future activity? 
His answer was : ' ' I should like to become a Cecil 
Ehodes." Cecil Rhodes (long before his death 
and the foundation of the Rhodes scholarship) or 
Pierpont Morgan were the ideal types of many 
a young German who were supposed to be, and 

92 



for themselves claimed to be, actuated by the 
highest ideals; who were thought to be by their 
political leaders, fantastic dreamers and unprac- 
tical Utopians. There are, no doubt, many young 
men living among us who have the same ideals; 
but we have never had the reputation abroad of 
being idealists and dreamers, and those young 
men would hardly understand what an idealist 
means. It is precisely among the upper classes 
who assert the feudal conditions of life and the 
prestige which it bestows upon them, and who 
also would shrink from the actual struggle and 
toil of honest commercial or industrial work, 
(which they more or less despise) that this desire 
for gold and the wish to possess the inordinate 
means with which their industrial magnates are 
blessed — it is amongst these that crass material- 
ism shows itself and that the value of money is 
most clearly realised. But it is also in the upper 
middle classes, amongst those who have gathered 
all the fruits of the best education and thought, 
and who in the Germany of old held high the 
torch of idealism, where the want of money is 
most keenly felt and the desire to possess it is 
one of the strongest passions. But here again it 
is not coupled with the simple and stern determ- 
ination to cast off all pretensions and honestly to 
enter into commerce or industry as a noble vo- 
cation in itself. They must base their social 
claims on being 'officers of the reserve,' and fly 
the colours of militarism for social distinction. 
Out of this class grows the band of malcontents 
and agitators; and in this class are to be found 
the haters of England, who are moved by violent 
envy towards the economic prosperity of the Eng- 
lish Empire and its subjects. This lust of gold on 

93 



the part of those not favoured by its possession, 
is most powerfully put, again in lyric form, in a 
poem by that same exponent of the militaristic 
spirit of modern Germany, Liliencron. I need not 
say, that I in no way wish to reflect on the per- 
sonality of this vigorous poet ; nor am I blind to 
the fact, that to depict the passions and moods 
of all manner of people and in all conditions of 
life is one of the great tasks of the poet; and 
that we should be absurdly wrong in ascribing 
to him the vices and faults which he describes 
with powerful poetic self detachment. Neverthe- 
less in his poem, called " Auf der Kasse," he does 
present to us a typical instance of the modern 
life about him, from which, according to Goethe's 
injunction, the poet seizes the subjects of his 
art. He there presents to us the sudden impulse 
of the poor man who is drawing his few shillings 
from the bank. Upon seeing the masses of gold 
which the cashiers are sorting he suddenly 
imagines how, if only they were all blind, he 
would dive into this mass of gold and carry it 
off, filling his pockets with it, pursued by the 
policemen whom he evades, and how then he 
would enjoy the fruits of his theft. The impulse 
and the momentary dream pass, and he returns 
to the bare reality and the mean conditions of his 
life. It is all both natural and human and is ex- 
pressed with forcible poetic power. The impulse 
may have come to many people all over the world. 
But the mood of this poem and of many others by 
this same author, expresses directly, in the sub- 
jective form of personal experience, (as the poems 
of Heine directly expressed the romanticism of 
his age), mental conditions which are most char- 
acteristic of the development of modern Germany, 

94 



and certainly show, not only this insidious spirit 
of envy and hatred; but also the direct material 
form, the desire for wealth, so foreign to the 
spirit of Teutonic life and of the German people 
of the past. 

Furthermore, however, this sudden growth of 
wealth has led to a degeneration of the social life 
of the people on a wider scale, especially in the 
material and sensual depravity prevalent at Ber- 
lin and in many of the larger provincial towns. 

Always remembering what the Germany of old 
was and keeping before our minds the attractive 
picture of its healthy simplicity, its solidity, 
coupled with its lofty idealism, if we then turn 
to the Germany of today as seen in the life of 
Berlin and the larger provincial cities, such as 
Hamburg, Frankfort, and Munich, the contrast 
will be most striking. These centres again affect 
the life of other towns as patterns of metropolitan 
elegance and culture, and, by direct contagion, the 
life of all the inhabitants in smaller towns and in 
rural districts who pay occasional visits to these 
centres of recreation and pleasure and carry away 
with them the germs of degeneration which there 
find such favourable pabulum for their ' ' culture. ' ' 
If we recall the pictures of the life and the enter- 
tainments at court and in the upper classes at 
Berlin in the days of the old Emperor William, the 
simplicity (which was not, therefore, necessarily 
attractive or refined), the absence of display, the 
meagreness of the means of entertainment, and 
the comparatively small cost which it entailed, 
with the present expense and luxury the change 
will impress itself most forcibly. Not only have 
the ordinary expenses of daily life grown in huge 
proportions, from house-rent onward; but in the 

95 



lavish entertainments which do not reflect, as they 
may in other countries, the well founded wealth 
which has become habitual and is directly in pro- 
portion to the more luxurious and brilliant condi- 
tions of life in which the wealthy classes pass 
their normal existence, but which is not domestic 
in character, and partakes of a tone of dissipa- 
tion. These entertainments are given at the res- 
taurants or hotels, or are sent from there to the 
homes. But far more significant of moral de- 
cadence are the social disintegrating excesses in 
the desire for amusements and display of Berlin 
distinctly tending towards the abnormal and 
morbid. I boldly venture to maintain that of all 
the great capitals of the world, including Paris, 
London, Vienna and New York, Berlin is the most 
patently and crassly depraved, and this depravity 
is admittedly organised and recognisable. The 
night-life of Berlin stands quite by itself among 
the cities of the world. Night is not devoted to 
sleep, but to the seeking of pleasure in all its 
forms. It may be said — as has often been replied 
to the critics of Paris, the Paris of old — that it 
chiefly concerns the visitors and strangers and is 
organised for them. No doubt the life of de- 
praved amusement in Paris during the Second 
Empire, and still surviving to some extent in our 
day, was chiefly provided for the hosts of foreign 
visitors. Yet in Berlin these strangers and vis- 
itors are not foreigners; but constitute the mass 
of the German people from every part of the 
German Empire, who thus are contaminated and 
depraved. Nor is it true that these amusements 
are meant to meet the demands of visitors only; 
for the night-clubs cater chiefly to the residents of 
Berlin; and among the habitues are representa- 

96 



lives of old historical houses, even the princes of 
the Empire, government officials, officers, as well 
as representatives of great wealth, or those who 
not having great wealth have the facilities of 
making great debts. This life of dissipation in 
its worst and most degenerate forms, goes on all 
night. The managers of the leading hotels assert 
that, when their work begins at six o'clock in the 
morning, about two-thirds of the keys in the hotel 
are still hanging on the board in the office, show- 
ing that the inmates of the hotel have not yet re- 
turned. Novels have been published telling how 
this poison has filtered through the whole country, 
even to the distant provinces. I cannot continue 
to dwell upon the character of some of the clubs 
frequented by men of high rank. I have said 
enough, and I only say it to point out the con- 
trast between the life of recent years and that 
of Germany before 1870. Nor, as I have said 
above is it limited to Berlin ; as London and Paris 
are recognised as the only centres in England and 
France where flagrant vice flourishes in a huge 
city. I have had it on good authority that some 
of the Palais de danse in certain of the more im- 
portant provincial towns attract even a large pro- 
portion, of the Bourgeosie. The sums expended 
and received in these Palais de Danse are incred- 
ibly large. We all know that such places of 
amusement and even worse ones, are to be found 
in Paris; and, though not to the same extent, in 
London. As many a German feared, the nation 
has lost some of the warlike efficiency possessed 
by their fathers of 1870, and to this degeneracy is 
perhaps to some extent to be traced the most re- 
volting forms of excesses which their cruelty has 
taken in Belgium and in France and which, in 

97 



some cases is only to be explained by a patho- 
logical perversion of sensuality. 

In France, on the other hand, it cannot be de- 
nied, that since the days of the Second Empire, 
there has been a regeneration of the moral fibre 
of the French people, especially among the young 
men of today. The infusion of the athletic spirit 
and all that it means morally, as consciously 
adopted from England, fostered by the direct 
efforts of several individuals, among whom I may 
single out the Baron Pierre de Couberton, the 
Vicomte de Jansey and others, in their "Associa- 
tion pour r Encouragement des Sports Athlet- 
iques/' and the seriousness with which the youth 
of France has been beginning to recognise its 
duty towards the State, have done much to prove 
them far different adversaries from those whom 
the Germans met in 1870, and I venture to pre- 
dict that this war will have a still more salutary 
effect in the moral regeneration of the French 
people. Still, there remains in France the great 
blot of financial corruption in the political life 
of the past, the dominance of the haute finance in 
every form of public activity ; and, above all, the 
evil traditions of a Press which is admittedly in 
so many, if not in most, cases representative of 
a definite financial group of interests. 

The reform, of all others, which is most needed 
in France, as it may be elsewhere, is that by new 
laws, corruption in the election of national rep- 
resentatives should be made impossible, and the 
immunity of the people's representatives from 
the disease of financial enterprise and speculation 
should be jealously safe-guarded and maintained. 

As for us here in England, we may also take 
timely warning. The tone of certain sets in the 

98 



huge society which centres in London has of late 
drawn dangerously near to degeneracy and de- 
cadence. London is fortunately so large that it 
can never be said to be dominated in its social 
character by any one group of people or any so- 
called ' ' set. ' ' The Court no doubt exercises, and 
will always exert, a powerful influence as a type 
and example to direct the social aspirations of the 
people; but it cannot be said that its tone of in- 
tercourse and habits of life in any way strike the 
dominant keynote to the symphony or cacophany 
of the social world, as is to a far greater extent 
the case in the society of Vienna or Berlin, or as 
was the case in the time of monarchical France. 
No doubt, however, it also exercised considerable 
influence on the "Surface ethics" of the people. 
There were and still exist, however, so many 
varied groups, based on similarity of rank, wealth, 
occupation or amusements, that no one ''set" 
could be said definitely to lead and to prescribe — 
as the case may be — the tone or the pace. 

This multiplicity of social influences and social 
standards has made it quite impossible, with any 
approach of truth to speak of "society" in Lon- 
don with any idea of accuracy, certainly not in 
the sense in which it was applied by our fore- 
fathers in the Eighteenth and earlier Centuries, 
or even in the earlier part of the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury. Nor could the term "society" be used in 
the sense in which self -complacently the residents 
in a small provincial town or village use it. 

On the other hand, owing to the modern system 
of publicity certain cliques have attained to a 
predominance before the world, which, no doubt 
has led to their setting the tone and establishing 
a tradition among wider social groups, if not for 

99 



the general public. But it must always be re- 
membered that these sets form a very small mi- 
nority; and that numerous other sets in London 
and in the country, more completely representa- 
tive of true British traditions of life and morals, 
command the respect of a wider public, and far 
out-weigh that minority in numbers, eminence and 
influence. These latter still represent what is 
best in English life. 

The tone of this minority in London society, 
constantly before the public, was decidedly low- 
ering to public morals and public taste. Their 
outer life was luxurious, pleasure-seeking, and 
even dissolute. Especially was it opposed to the 
fundamental tradition of home-life, which has 
ever been essentially private and unconcerned 
with publicity and display. Their lives were pre- 
eminently lived in public. The Restaurant had 
with them superseded the home ; and their amuse- 
ments and entertainments were thus enjoyed be- 
fore the eyes of the multitude. The traditions of 
the modern press, with its advertising publicity, 
came in to diffuse still further the elements of 
luxury and of profligacy and the dissolution of 
the traditional home. 

As thus foreign habits of Restaurant-life were 
engrafted, so also foreign tastes in art were estab- 
lished, which not only hampered the natural 
growth in expression of national character in art, 
but actually fostered exotic tastes which exercised 
deeper influence on life itself. 

It is no doubt good to broaden one's taste 
towards catholicity and to increase the capacity 
of appreciating, not only the life and art of by- 
gone ages, but also of contemporary peoples re- 
mote from ourselves in every way. To have had 

100 



presented to us the characteristic art (and 
through it the characteristic life as well) of mod- 
ern Sicily, Belgium and even of China and Japan, 
through the masterly performances of Sicilian, 
Belgian, Chinese and Japanese plays enacted by 
their own people, was an artistic delight and a 
step towards an extention of aesthetic and intel- 
lectual sympathy. Not so, however, the position 
which was assigned to the Russian ballet. 

The Russian ballet and the masterly and ex- 
quisite performances witnessed in London of late 
years presented us with superior art of its kind. 
But it would be a mistake to assign too prom- 
inent and representative a position to this par- 
ticular form of art even in the general national 
art of Russia. It is well to appreciate and to en- 
joy such artistic production. But to assign to it 
a central or dominant influence on artistic na- 
ture, by submitting continuously and for a long 
period to its charm, until it prevades our whole 
taste, is a dangerous exaggeration which may have 
deeper and far-reaching effects upon national 
taste and national morals. The brilliancy and 
oriental sensuousness of such displays, though 
justified in due proportion in our artistic exper- 
ience, cannot be healthy for us when they be- 
come predominant, and must, should they take 
hold of our moral, destroy the essential elements 
of our national character as expressed and con- 
firmed by art. The Arabian Nights are a classic 
in the world's literature. But to make them the 
ordinary daily literary pabulum of Western 
readers and the central standards of Western 
taste, can only pervert the moral as well as the 
artistic side of our national life. It appears that, 
with the recent exaggerated prominence given to 

101 



the Russian ballet, such influences have already 
been at work and have permeated into the life of 
its devotees, even to the modification of taste in 
dress. 

These dangers of degeneracy from the example 
of social minorities and from exotic interference 
with the true and natural expression of our na- 
tional life, character and tastes have been checked 
by the war. With all its horrors, miseries and 
degradations, it has certainly, by the self-sacrifice 
of our manhood, the devotion and inwardness of 
effort of our women — in fact the temporary moral 
revival of the whole nation, brought us back to 
our elemental principles of national morals. May 
it thus pave the way for a lasting national re- 
generation in every walk and sphere of life in 
the future. 

All these menaces in the social life of contem- 
porary England to which I have referred here 
are dangerous to the continuance of a healthy na- 
tional life. In view of the degeneration observable 
in Germany within the last thirty years, we ought 
to take heed and conteract these evil influences 
which tend to undermine our own national health. 



102 



CHAPTER IV 

The Conception of the State and of Interna- 
tional Relations 

We have hitherto considered the direct and im- 
mediate causes, national, social and moral, which 
have led to this war. But, as I urged from the 
beginning of this book, there are more remote 
and less manifest, causes of a more general, 
though more fundamental, nature which are to 
be found in the constitution of the moral and 
social life, not only of the Germans, but of the 
Western civilised peoples throughout the world. 
Though these causes are of such a general and 
remote character, they are none the less the fac- 
tors which have directly contributed to this cat- 
astrophic climax in the international relations 
of all civilised peoples. They concern the gen- 
eral ideas and ideals which at once express and 
regulate the national and international con- 
science of civilised peoples. Though definitely 
formulated and effectively fixed, so as to regu- 
late and determine the political life of the sev- 
eral nations, they are in reality in direct contra- 
diction to the true consciousness, political and 
moral, of the several peoples upon whom they are 
imposed. Such contradiction applies to, in the 
first instance, the conceptions of the State, and 
the international relations between the States. 

In spite of the firm foundation and the wide 
diffusion of democratic principles throughout the 
civilised world; in spite of Lincoln's epigramatic 

103 



summary of the object and ultimate aim of gov- 
ernment, as ''Government of the people, by the 
people and for the people," in the mind of the 
Germans and of more autocratically governed 
nations, the State is still regarded as an en- 
tity apart from and above the people, its au- 
thority is conceived as being absolute and auto- 
cratic and, in some of its aspects, opposed to its 
citizens, who are to bow down before its author- 
ity. Even with ourselves, in some aspects of our 
political life, especially those that develop patri- 
otic chauvinism, this idea of the State sometimes 
shows itself. In this conception there is a dis- 
tinct line dra"\vn between the rulers and the ruled. 
Even when the governed revolt against their rul- 
ers, or harbour the spirit of revolt, they thereby 
affirm this difference, until they look upon the 
State and government as criminals look upon the 
police, not as representatives and guardians of 
the people's laws — laws made by the people and 
guardians appointed by them to watch over these 
laws — but as the inimical representative of an out- 
side interest opposed to their own. in all these 
cases, in any event, the State is conceived of as an 
entity in itself, independent of the people whose 
unity — derived from whatever causes, geographi- 
cal, ethnological, legislative, social or moral — 
constitutes the essence of the State. This con- 
ception of the State as "a thing in itself," con- 
firmed in' the life and history of early peoples and 
consciously and intellectually by the Greek writ- 
ers on history, politics and philosophy, has sur- 
vived, in spite of all the huge developments of 
political thought and liberty, and of the democrat- 
ic spirit manifested in the writings of publicists 
and philosophers from the Renaissance onwards 

104 



and notably in the Eighteenth Century and since 
the French Revolution. In the writings of many 
modern historians, especially the Geimans, ac- 
centuated in those of a militaristic turn of mind to 
whom we have to such a great degree traced the 
responsibility for this war, the autocratic and 
theocratic view of the State survive in a more or 
less manifest form. With these later historians 
and constitutional historians however, an inter- 
mediate stage has been developed between the an- 
cient conception of the absolute unity of the State 
and the democratic principles of government. 
This intermediate conception or cumpromise is 
found in the term 'national' (Nazional), or rather 
'racial' (Rassen-staat), which, as we have seen, to 
a great extent accounts for the Chauvinistic spirit 
dominating the German world. Whether this mod- 
em idea of Nationality, as the chief justification 
for the existence of the State and as an effective 
ideal in political life, national and international, 
is to be traced back to Napoleon or Mazzini, or to 
a confluence of many historical and political cur- 
rents in the nineteenth century, the fact remains 
that it has been, and is, the most powerful factor 
in political life and in the formation of political 
theory. Its influence in modern times can be 
traced in numerous international movements and 
crises. In the Balkans it has been modified and 
itensified by the fusion of racial and religious 
differences, and has thus been the cause of con- 
tinuous international complications and difficul- 
ties, the final solution of which is remote in the 
future and threatens the worM's peace for some 
time to oome. The modem German development 
of Nationality found full expression since the days 
of Bismarck, and its development is not only to be 

105 



seen in such historians as Treitschke, who was 
taken up by the publicists and the teachers of con- 
stitutional history throughout Germany, but has 
been, and is, the current German conception in 
modem times. I well remember how it formed the 
central idea in the lectures of the late Professor 
Bruntsohli of Heidelberg who, though a native of 
Switzerland, stiU responded directly to the exac- 
tions of Bismarckian policy. The justification for 
the German Empire was that it directly responded 
to, and expressed, the racial unity of the German 
people; and this racial unity drew a fixed and 
marked line, as regards the interests and the very 
existence of the State, between it and other states 
of different racial origin. Wherever among the 
inhabitants this racial unity was not clearly ex- 
pressed, in fact was made doubtful or weakened, 
it naturally led to internal antagonism: and thus 
grew up within the people the anti-Semitic party, 
while the Poles and Danes and any other element 
that could assert itself, or could at all be recog- 
nised in its supposed solidarity, was persecuted 
and suppressed. If this suppression was not com- 
pletely successful, it naturally led to disquieting 
elements of disruption and of party contest. It 
thus favoured antagonism, leading through dislike 
to hatred without and within. 

In any case the unity of the State and the close 
ties of affinity and of national affection which give 
vitality to its national life — give a soul to the na- 
tion — ^are very much endangered when they rest 
upon such ethnological grounds. For when we 
ask the question, 'Which one of the civilised states 
of modem times can claim, and truly realise its 
claim to, racial unity?' the answer must be, 'Not 
one of them.' While this is being written there 

106 



are appearing a series of letters in the "Times," 
grouping round a controversy waged by eminent 
men, as to the position which the Anglio- Saxons 
held in the formation and development of the 
English nation and of the British Empire. Such 
discussions appear to me futile and childish, es- 
pecially when their result is to have a direct bear- 
ing upon the inner social and political life, and 
upon the actual foreign relations of our State. 
Subdivide as you will the subjects of the King of 
England into the original and aboriginal predeces- 
sors of modem Englishmen, of paleolithic and ne- 
olithic inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland, 
the Celts and their varied ramifications, Bretons, 
Picts and Scots, Saxons, Danes and Norsemen, 
Normans and other races; add to these, in more 
clearly historical times, the more peaceful incur- 
sions of other immigrants, who, from their leader- 
ship in thought and in trade and in all forms of 
industry, or, by highly educated social groups or 
individual men, have left their mark upon English 
history — ^subdivide as much as you will, you can- 
not thereby destroy the unity of the British Em- 
pire, the soul of the nation, welded together by 
its past history, its political construction, its spirit 
of liberty, its customs and traditions and its ideals 
of living. Not only the ethnological groups of its 
inhabitants in the remote past but these more re- 
cent accessions to British nationality have had the 
most powerful influence in giving definite charac- 
ter and in directing the development of English 
national life. These comprise the Jews, who no 
doubt in the Middle Ages in the time of Isaac of 
York and the other 'bankers' of those days, before 
their expulsion, exercised a most powerful civilis- 
ing influence on the development of English life. 

107 



But since their return in the time of Cromwell, 
they have produced leading individuals in every 
walk of life, culminating in the personality of Dis- 
raeli who, whether admired or condemned by the 
partisan, certainly left his imprint on the history 
and political character of his age as perhaps no 
other individual has done since the days of Pitt. 
We have also to consider the immigration into 
Enigland, both from the Low Countries and from 
France, of the weavers and skilled Artisans, 
Dutch, Flemish or Huguenot, who undoubtedly 
gave a turn to the character of British trade and 
industry. They also furnish us with individual 
men and families who have duly risen to eminence 
and who have added most perceptibly to the for- 
mation of our national character in our own days. 
It is puerile, as well as absolutely inept and in- 
effectual, to endeavour to allocate the good or the 
potently effective in our national life and char- 
acter among the several ethnological sources 
from which the truly formative elements in na- 
tional history are supposed to be derived. Burke, 
"Wellington and Palmerston may or may not have 
been of pure Celtic origin, but they were practic- 
ally of Irish descent though they had their full 
share in the making of England, as much as did 
Cromwell, Pitt, Fox and Gladstone. Were one to 
adopt experimental and observational methods, 
such as the field geologist is capable of applying 
in rapid observation to the theoretical study of 
geology, one would be absolutely confused and 
puzzled were one to try to segregate into the var- 
ious ethnological strata any given number of peo- 
ple in any one of our towns — not to speak of Lon- 
don at all — and even in our country villages, ac- 
cording to the ethnological types which they are 

108 



supposed to represent. The wholfe structure of 
such generalisation in theoretical study, still more 
in the practical application of such distinctions to 
the different problems of the social and political 
life of the country— nay the very basis of the ex- 
istence of the State as a unity — ^would at once top- 
ple to the ground. 

And this is not only true of Great Britain, it 
is true of every single nation of Western Europe, 
perhaps even of Slav Russia. Germany and 
France are in their ethnological constitution as 
mixed and disparate as any nation claiming na- 
tional unity can well be. There may be more dif- 
ference of physique and character, of habits of 
life, of emotionality, of intellectual predisposition, 
of temperament and taste, constituting what we 
call personality, between the South Gennans of 
Bavaria and Wiirtemburg and Baden and the Hiast 
Prussian, between them again and the Holsteiner 
and the Westphalian and those from the Rhine 
provinces, than between any one of these and cit- 
izens of Denmark, and Poland, Switzerland or 
Holland. And their different dialects, though all 
form part of the German language, their pronun- 
ciation, and intonation of this same language, are 
so different that I, as a foreigner, have had to act 
a^ an interpreter between the dwellers of the 
Chalets in the Bavarian highlands and the Tyrol 
and the North German tourists who vainly en- 
deavoured to make themselves understood. 

I do not in any way maintain that the inhab- 
itants who thus differ from one another should 
not collectively form a state as little as 1 maintain 
that, because in language, and perhaps in race, 
there may be great affinity between sections of 
the German people and the Swiss, or between. 

109 



other sections and the Flemings and Dutch, they 
are necessarily to form one state that Switzerland, 
Belgimn and Holland should therefore be deprived 
of their independence and be incorporated into 
the German Empire. It is amusing to note how, 
when would-be scientific and philological princi- 
ples suit the purposes of German Weltpolitik, they 
can at once be made subservient to national greed. 
In an article which has recently appeared, the 
criminal breach of Belgian neutrality and the 
prospective annexation of Belgium by the German 
Empire is supported on the grounds of such phil- 
ology and ethnology. 

Does anybody in his senses, honestly believe 
that such unsound, pretentious and pedantic ef- 
forts of the ethnologist establish a moral, and 
practical ground for the claims of any state to ab- 
solute power, to the commands of which every 
individual citizen, all classes of the population, 
all groups and interests of economic and social 
life, are to bow down: in unquestioning obedience f 
Are the rights of the people dependent upon this 
flimsy and fantastic structure of pedantic school- 
masters aspiring to be master-builders of States ? 

And when we turn from the State in itself to the 
relations of the several states to one another, how 
can any one of these, on the ground of an utterly 
false ethnological generalisation, claim ascen- 
dency over all the others! What is the concep- 
tion in the mind of such thinkers and politicians of 
the relation of the state to the whole inhabited 
globe with its millions upon millions of human 
beings, each claiming their own right to live and 
to think and to act in freedom? On these shadowy 
figments of narrow and destructive brains they 
claim the supreme moral right to subjugate other 

110 



peoples and nations to the interests and desires 
of one small group of people calling themselves a 
state, with unrestrained ambition to bend the 
whole world to their own desires ! Why should a 
relatively small section of land, a district in Eur- 
ope marked on the map as Germany, with its sixty 
or seventy millions of people among the untold 
millions of human beings, become the absorbing 
centre of the world's collective life, so that all the 
world should minister to its desires and swear 
allegiance to its national exactions, to become, not 
so much the guiding brain and the sentient heart, 
but the absorbing stomach to which all life is to 
be subordinated! It, is Imperialism gone mad! 

The German may answer that his justification 
for world-power lies in his Kultur, and that the 
civilisation represented by the German people, has 
the comparatively highest claim among civilised 
nations, and ought therefore to dominate the 
world. Quite apart from the fact that we should 
absolutely deny this primacy of German civilisa- 
tion, which, as we have seen before, even their 
own philosophers deny, how can they diffuse and 
advance their own Kultur by the barbarous and 
degrading methods of war? But even if, argu- 
menti causa, we were to admit that they were thus 
fitted to lead, then let them lead onwards and up- 
wards ; but not push and drive with the brutal, as 
well as deceitful and utterly demoralising force, 
their peaceful neighbours and distant peoples back 
into the fold of their own selfishness, to serve their 
own interests, increase their wealth and power, to 
satisfy the lust of dominance, nay, the vanity of 
this sixty or seventy millions of people in that 
small portion of the globe. I may be allowed to 
repeat in substance what I have already written 

111 



with reference to the Jews,^ "If there is anything 
good in you — you who may, with more or less 
doubtful accuracy, be supposed to be the direct 
descendants of one of the greatest races of the 
past — show it and let the world benefit by the 
spirit which moves you and has move<l you in the 
past ; hold on high the torch of your ancestors and 
let it illumine the world for the good of the world ! 
But you are most likely to accomplish this, not by 
segregating yourselves into separate social or pol- 
itical groups in the states of which you are citi- 
zens, still less by endeavouring to become a sep- 
arate nation with all the pretentions, the actual or 
potential antagonisms to other states which such 
corporateness implies, but by being perfectly de- 
veloped and high minded individuals, affectionate 
and helpful members of your family, devotedly 
attached to its prosperity and its good name, be- 
neficent dwellers in any community where you 
may happen to live, and loyal citizens of the State 
in which, whether for many centuries or even for 
a few years, you have been active national units, 
contributing as such units, to the free development 
of the laws and the national life of such a State. 
Let your poetic imagination and your pride of 
descent, and the duty which you owe to the good 
fame of your ancestors, beautify and strengthen 
your lives, as the works of art or the beauties of 
literature in due proportion add their refining 
element to your life of leisure. Sentiment is all, 
because it groups round the idea, the ideal es- 
sence, of material things. If any natural evolu- 
tion of the human kind and any sequence of his- 
torical events (though in your case, generally sad), 



(1) See the chapter (II, pp. 54-99) on the Mission of the 
Jews in my book "The Jewish Question and the Mission of the 
Jews." 

112 



have made you what you are, and what you are is 
good, let this good permeate into the life about 
you as individual factors in a complex State, and 
let all together ultimately lead to the advance of 
tjie human race and the diffusion of happiness 
throughout it. ' ' Deutsche Kultur if you like, whai- 
ever be best in it ! But not the Kultur of the Prus- 
sian Junker, or bureaucrat, the grasping All- 
Deutscher pauper who wants more money, the 
beer-heavy stump speaker in a frowsy inn who, 
indolent in all but his unassuaged rapacity, fans 
his sentimental GemutJilichkeit of old into hyster- 
ical passion, until it at last bursts forth into a 
Hymn of Hate ! Such, however, is the contagion 
of the Chauvinistic idea, of the so-called Nazional 
Stoat, to which I have before referred, that the 
Jews themselves have been affected, and a small 
section of them must needs strive for a Jewish 
Empire in the conception of the Zionist movement. 
The objection may be made that all that I have 
just said and urged against the vicious spirit of 
All-Deutscliland is also directed against all Im- 
perialism, including British Imperialism. But I 
would except the British Empire, because it has, 
in pursuing its own national destiny as a great 
colonising State, gone as far as, under the dom- 
inant condition of national and racial ideas of our 
days, it could go towards the realisation of our 
true ideals of politics. It aims in every case at 
establishing freedom and self-government for each 
colony, of giving of the best to each one of these, 
which in the course of history have come under 
its influence and dominion, and, fulfilling its mis- 
sion — as long as Free Trade and the 'open door' 
rule its policy — of ignoring the selfish call of the 
immediate interests in the Mother Country. 

113 



What always remains in welding the numerous 
and varied peoples of the British Empire to- 
gether, is the national sentiment, the feeling of a 
common ipast, of a common origin, of common 
traditions and of a united struggle for the realisa- 
tion of definite ideas and ideals in government and 
social life. Just as the members and descendants 
of one family are bound together, but are thereby 
in no way excluded from their vigorous endeav- 
ours to be good citizens of their country and of 
the world at large, to realise the tasks in the life 
set before them and to contribute as individuals 
to the advancement and betterment of the whole 
world, so are all the citizens of the British Empire 
bound together, and this war — to the undoing of 
German Chauvinists — has proved the reality and 
strength of these bonds more forcibly than ever 
before. I repeat : sentiment is a great power and 
has its direct practical uses and effectiveness, es- 
pecially in larger collective bodies. It is as real 
and as effective and less likely tio^ lead to discord 
and the clashing of interests, than the manifestly 
practical aims and allurements of colonial pref- 
erence or of protective tariffs. 

But why should Germany, after driving like a 
wedge its commercial penetration into Asia Minor, 
•or one of the South American Republics, and nat- 
urally and organically affecting the life of these 
ooiuntries, until the good that may thus arise will 
of its own force survive f Why should force and 
brutal compulsion destroy the national life of the 
people inhabiting these countries and, artificially 
engraft the conditions which prevail in Germany, 
mechnically to supersede by force, persnasion, not 
by evolution and the living civilisation which has 
grown up out of the soil and out of the history of 

114 



Asia Minor or South America, arising from legit- 
imate traditions and national sentiments? Above 
all finally should they succeed in establishing such 
colonies, should these become merely the means 
to develop the commerce and wealth, to swell the 
pockets and paunches of the German officials and 
manufacturers and merchants — all ending in dis- 
cord and endless war and bloodshed within and 
without and over the whole world? But this is 
the real picture which those who have made, and 
those who are carrying on this criminal war, have 
drawn for the edification of the German people. 
The spirit of German culture is not the aim in 
itself, and never was, even if they were convinced 
of its absolute superiority over all other forms of 
civilisation. 

The accumulaton of irrefutable evidence from 
every quarter of the globe, the definite statements 
and documents revealed since the war began, and 
the more recent pronouncements of the King of 
Bavaria concerning Belgium, leave no doubt of 
the aggressive plans of annexation and land-grab- 
bing of the dominant leaders of Germany which 
have matured for years past. Moreover it has 
been shown by their own official statements that 
there is no real pressing need for colonisation and 
**the plaoe in the sun" to find employment for the 
surplus population of Germany. Emigration ha& 
decreased, not increased within recent years — in 
fact labour has been continually imported into 
Germany from other countries in large masses.^ 

If German Kultur is the best of all existing 
forms of civilisation, it will assert itself by its 



(1) See Helfferich in Soziale Kultur und VoVcswohlfohrt 
wdhrand der ersten 25 Regierungsjahre Wilhelms II p. 17; also 
G. L. Beer, in the Forum, May 1915, pp. 550, and J'Accuse; 
(German edition) pp. 41 seq. 

115 



intrinsic worth, weight and power. If the German 
language is the best means of loonveying hmnan 
thought, it will assert itself and supersede all 
other languages. But we shall not adopt them at 
the command of the German Junker or the Ger- 
man drill-sergeant, or stand by to see them forced 
upon weaker states, who themselves may possess 
even an older and nobler civilisation of their own, 
in order to satisfy the school-boy vanity of Ger- 
man thinkers of second, third, or fourth-rate cap- 
acity, devoid of all genius, whose only merit and 
use, great though it be, consists in tabulating and 
making handy for the world the achievements of 
the great geniuses, most of them not German, who 
marked an epoch in the world of thought and art 
and invention; nor shall we head the vociferous 
band of intellectual followers, drunken with the 
All-Deutsche ideals of a Treitschke, a Nietszche 
or Bernhardi. Why, to satisfy German national 
and racial vanity, should Holland, and Belgium, 
and Switzerland — ultimately Denmark, and Nor- 
way, and Sweden, as well — be expunged from the 
political map of Europe? Why should Northern 
France disappear as the courageous and imagina- 
tive leader of modem thought and taste? Why 
should their ambitions be unchecked as regards 
South America, Asia Minor, China and Japan, and 
their envious rapacity push on to grasp the colon- 
ies and dependencies of Great Britain, happy in 
their political kinship with their political and so- 
cal parent land, loyal to its dominion and leader- 
ship, and ready — as the present war has proved — 
to fight her battles and to assert her might ! 

The British Empire has, up to the present mo- 
ment, recognised and acted upon this principle of 
the open door with regard to its colonies and de- 

116 



pendencies, and it would be nothing short of a 
political crime, as well as economic folly, to aban- 
don this broadest principle of Free Trade, upon 
which morally as well as materially the prosper- 
ity of the British Empire has hitherto rested. 



117 



CHAPTER V 

The Humanitarian Consciousness of The 

Modern Man 

This principle of the ''Open Door" has formed 
the very essence of the policy of the United States, 
when it has been drawn into the vortex of interna- 
tional struggle in the case of China, and was clear- 
ly expressed in the lasting and classic pronounce- 
ment by the great and wise political leader, the 
late John Hay. It has been, and will ever remain, 
the dominant principle of the government of the 
United States in its relation to the expansion of 
Western icivilisation. With the recognition of this 
principle and the absence of all those international 
intrigues and smouldering, or flaming, antagon- 
isms for which in the past Germany has been 
chiefly responsible (though Russia and ourselves 
and all other States are not free from guilt in the 
methods and work of their Foreign Offices), there 
is no reason why the commercial penetration of 
Asia Minor and all that the building of the Bagdad 
Railway meant might not ultimately have provid- 
ed Germany with a vast field for enterprise, for 
commercial expansion at home, and for the for- 
eign employment of men with energy and talent 
from the Mother Country, Of course tney would 
in justice be bound to consider and to respect the 
well established claims — established for many 
years of fruitful activity — which Great Britain 
possessed on the Persian Gulf and in the adjacent 
centres bordering it, such as Koweit and Busra. 

118 



In spite of tlie Monroe Doctrine, why should not 
Germany have continued the commercial penetra- 
tion of more than one of the South American re- 
publics with large groups of German settlers 
forming, de facto, German colonies; until, again 
de facto, by the exercise of free and peaceful ac- 
tivity these colonists would have gamed actual 
control in directing the course of life, and in set- 
ting its tone in such countries. Moreover, if their 
own Kidtur, the civilisation which they collec- 
tively represent, was actually superior to the civ- 
ilisation which they found and which had before 
been dominant, it would of itself have changed 
and ultimately have superseded the lower forms ; 
and we might in due course have seen the actual 
transplantation of German Kultur into distant 
parts of the globe. History has repeatedly shown 
how the superior civilisation will prevail over the 
lower forms which it meets in any given country. 
Ultimately, however, it is possible, nay iprobable, 
that such an off-shoot from the parent stock in 
peaceful colonial development will sever from the 
parent stem and establish an independent exis- 
tence and growth of its oiwn ; but the civilisation 
remains the same in its orignial essence and in the 
blessings of superiority which the parent nation 
has conferred upon its off-shoot. Was not the 
United States a direct off-shoot of the English 
parent stem, and may not in the future the British 
colonies more and more assert their political and 
social independence and develop their own local 
and peculiar characters, enriching the world by 
a distinct and new form of civilisation on an equal- 
ity of height with the parent culture; until they 
may even react upon the old world and modify it 
in many forms? So the civilisation of the Greek 

119 



colonies in Magna Grecia and Sicily reacted upon 
the Mother Countrj^ while, in great part through 
these Greek Colonies the Latin civilisation of the 
Italic Peninsula was infused with Hellenism. 
Then, through the vast Roman Ercipire, nearly 
every part of the world, was modified to the very 
depths of social and political existence in the spir- 
it of Hellenism, as it passed through, and was 
modified and enlarged by, Rome. Finally, after 
the Italian Renaissance, the submerged classic 
spirit again arose in a new, yet pristine, glory ; and 
the classical spirit of humanity has ever since 
dominated and been the most potent factor in 
modem European civilisation, both in Europe it- 
self and in America, and will ultimately penetrate 
into the furthest East and West, and North and 
South of this earth of ours. 

But here the cloven foot of Chauvinism in a 
seemingly noble and more justifiable form shows 
itself again; and now it is in the spirit of "na- 
tional patriotism," as it may be called, or of na- 
tional vanity as it might more properly be called. 
The members of a living modern state do not wish 
to lose one particle of the credit and the glory 
which comes from seeing themselves and what 
they consider their own Kultur carried away from 
them by their migrating sons. Whatever pros- 
perity may come to these colonising sons, what- 
ever the good which may flow from them and their 
efforts into the new home of their adoption, how- 
ever marked the step in advance which through 
the new community may thus be made in the civil- 
isation of the whole world through its infusion in- 
to distant parts, that of itself is not enough. It 
must immediately and in every case reflect the 
glory of those at home ; it must contribute directly 

120 



to the prosperity or the fame of the parent hearth^ 
nay of the parent himself. The unwise Father 
thus is tempted to play the part of t^rovidence 
and to project his will far into the future ; as the 
'dead hand' in the will of a self-assertive testator 
endeavors in every detail of life to bind the bene- 
ficiaries of his testament and to direct and to 
modify the will, the reason and the actionsi — even 
the sense of justice — ^of those who succeed him. 

Consider it as you may, the fact remains, that 
fundamentally this so-called national patriotism, 
which insists upon definite and distinct national 
expansion, is but the outcome of supreme national 
vanity, narrowed down by a selfish and petty 
sphere of vision, if it be not the grosser form of 
clear-sighted selfislmess, which only aims at its 
own immediate material aggrandisement, increase 
of wealth and comfort, to be derived, not only 
from the colony as such, but from every individual 
sent out supposedly for his own good and whose 
activity it is desired to limit and to hamper in 
the one direction of the Mother Country. 

As it has been this antiquated and false concep- 
tion of the state in its relation to its citizens which 
is in great part accountable for the growth and 
development of Chauvinism in Germany, and has 
led to this catastrophic war, so it is especially this 
distorted view of colonial expansion, mistaking 
national vanity for patriotism, which is even more 
directly responsible for German aggression 
throughout the world ; and, when fanned into the 
raging heat of passion through the characteristic 
^dce of envy, has produced the spirit of hatred 
against the British Empire and its inhabitants 
which has thrown the modem German nation back 
to the savagery of the primitive Hun. 

121 



And what will every right-minded German citi- 
zen say when, without even considering the in- 
justice and savagery shown to his fellow-men of 
other countries, nor the initial injustice of Ger- 
man aggression in this war, he realises through 
untold suffering the misery and financial ruin of 
his own country, the torture and suffering ending 
in the death of millions of his own kith and kin, 
and the sadness which will come to every German 
home, not one of which will be without intense 
anguish ! What will these right-minded and clear 
thinking Germans say when the scales have fallen 
from their eyes and the}^ fully realise for what 
imaginary, what trivial and inanely stupid mo- 
tives this huge sacrifice of life, wealth and happi- 
ness — a greater sacrifice than has ever been made 
in the world's history — has been made, this crim- 
inal war has been waged ! 

Remember, moreover, that the German work- 
man had continuously and for many years been 
gaining the conviction, (and the determination to 
act upon it), that by nature interest and morality, 
he was not severed from his fellow workman living 
in other countries and belonging to other nations, 
that — so far from regarding him as his natural 
enemy — he actually felt him to be his brother, his 
friend in arms. Within recent times, day by day, 
and year by year, he became conscious of his 
power to act in accordance with these true feelings 
guiding the labouring man all over the world. The 
International Socialistic Brotherhood was not a 
mere name without substance or without power. 
What this pow-- meant and how it could effectu- 
ally be used against the action of his militarist 
tyrants became clearly manifest from the moment 
that in Russia in 1905 the first attempt on a large 

122 



scale to organize a general strike was made. 
Though on that occasion the general strike was 
not completely successful, still it did produce a 
considerable effect in Russia itself, and was one 
of the most important events in modem history. 
It proved to the world what might in the future 
be done by the united action of the labouring men 
in any country who knew their own minds, were 
clear in their purpose, and well organised in car- 
rying out their plans. Moreover, as the years 
rolled on, the international aspect of the union of 
labouring men, leading to concerted action in the 
interests of the whole body, grew more clearly 
pronounced and promised more definite interna- 
tional action. The so-called sympathetic strikes 
grew in frequency. It thus became clear to a 
^reat many thinkers and to many of the leaders 
of the Labour Party themselves, that the so-called 
pacifist tendencies and aims of these powerful 
bodies all over the world might in the near future 
effectually prevent any great European War — in 
fact any war between civilised and well organised 
modern states. I have referred above (p. 115) 
to the opinion held by one of the greatest living 
authorities on the labour question and the inter- 
national character which strikes were assuming. 
These facts were a confirmation of my own opin- 
ion shared by a leading German statesman that in 
the near future wars between civilised nations 
might thus become impossible. There can be no 
doubt that the true consciousness of the mass of 
the labouring men in Europe — at all events the 
most intelligent and most powerful amongst them 
— -was utterly opposed to any great war between 
civilised nations and had no feeling of opposition, 
animosity or violent hatred to the population of 

123 



any other country on the grounds of national or 
racial, or imperial, differences. On the contrary, 
they were distinctly anti-Chauvinistic and were 
cultivating feelings and actions of international 
comity among all workers in all civilised states. 
M'ore and more they were preparing memseives 
to check and to counteract in every way interna- 
tional aggression and internecine war. 

At the same time the action of capital as such 
and of the capitalistic class, in spite of the potent 
and overwhelming interests of those concerned in 
armaments, was working in the same direction to 
make war in future between civilised nations im- 
possible, almost inconceivable. Mr. Norman An- 
gell and many other writers have forcibly im- 
pressed upon the world the constraining influence 
of international capital and industry in its op- 
position to war and the disastrous effects which 
war would have not only upon the nations con- 
cerned, but upon neutrals as well. They have also 
shown how even the victorious nation can not in 
modern times gain the fruits of its victory. No 
doubt, in bygone ages the greed of possession and 
acquisition were generally the motives wnich led 
to warlike aggression and immediately rewarded 
the victor by the increase of his own wealth and 
of all other amenities of life. But with the mod- 
ern application of capital and its penetration from 
one commercial centre into all foreign parts and 
distant nations, the sensitiveness and interdepen- 
dence of financial, commercial and industrial bod- 
ies in every nation offered no such inducements to 
the aggressor and made it the universal interest 
of every nation to prevent a war. 

Apparently all the prophecies of these pacifist 
writers have been belied by the course of recent 

124 



events. But this is only apparent and not actually 
true. The truth is that, perhaps, on the one side, 
the materialistic interests were too strongly back- 
ed by that section of the economic world directly 
interested in armaments; and that, on the other 
side, the contingency to which I have just re- 
ferred — that in the race for time the militaristic 
competitor literally 'stole a march,' and that this 
war was thus brought about. It may pernaps 
only have been a question of a few years that the 
hoplite runner would have been completely out- 
distanced and beaten by the unarmed, yet fleet 
and sure-footed, toiler in the fields and in the fac- 
tory. 

I must here reproduce the exposition of this 
question as published by me twenty-one years ago 
(The Jewish Question and the Mission of the 
Jews, 6th ed. London and New York, 1894, pp. 82 
seq.): 

"The present foreign policy of European states 
shows a disastrous confusion which marks a tran- 
sition. It is the death-struggle of nationalism, and 
the transition to a more active and real form of 
general international federation. In this death- 
struggle we have the swan-song of the past dynas- 
tic traditions in monarchy giving form, and often 
heat and intensity, to the contest upheld in cer- 
tain customs of diplomatic machinery, with, on 
the other hand, the birth-struggle towards the or- 
ganisation of international life, the needs of which 
are at present only felt practically in the sphere 
of commerce. This birth-struggle at present man- 
ifests itself chiefly in narrow and undignified jeal- 
ously and envy for commercial advantages; and 
this, unfortunately, is growing the supreme ul- 
timate aim of all international emulation. W e can 

125 



trac« nearly all the diplomatic rivalry ultimately 
to the interests of commerce and the greed for 
money. One often hears it said that Jewish bank- 
ers make and unmake wars. This is not true. 
Money makes and unmakes wars; and if there 
were not this greed of money among the -contend- 
ing people the bankers would not be called upon 
at all. There are, of course, further complications 
favoring the older spirit of national envy^ which 
is dying, though far from being dead. Such are 
the influences of the huge military organizations, 
definite wounds unhealed (such as the feeling of 
reprisal on the part of France), and, finally the 
last phases of the artificial bolstering up of the 
idea of the national-staat in Germany and Italy. 
But the whole of this conception of nationalism, 
in so far as it implies an initial hatred and enmity 
towards other national bodies, is doomed. A few 
generations, perhaps, of disaster and misery ac- 
companying this death-struggle will see the new 
era. 

* * Now, there are several practical factors which 
are paving the way indirectly towards the broad- 
er national life of this coming era. They are, 
strange to say, the two main opposite forces of 
the economical life of the day : Capital and La- 
bour. Each of these, separately following the in- 
herent impulse of its great forces, which constant- 
ly run counter to one another, tends towards the 
same goal, especially in its pronounced forms. 
Capital does this in the great international hous- 
es and in the Stock Exchanges ; Labour, since the 
first International Convention of 1867, in its great 
labor organizations. The highly developed sys- 
tem of modem banking business and of the Stock 
Exchange, favored by the rapid and easy means 
of intercommunication without regard to distance, 
has made all countries, however far apart, sensi- 
tive to the fate which befalls each ; and this tends 

126 



more and more to make Capital an international 
unit, which can be, and is being, used, whatever 
its origin, in all the different quarters where there 
seems a promising demand for it. 

''On the other hand, the growth of organization 
among the representatives of labor is fast step- 
ping beyond the narrow limits of national boun- 
daries, and the common interests tend to increase 
the directness of this wider institution. I axa not 
adducing these facts in order to suggest any solu- 
tion of the numerous problems which they involve, 
nor to direct the attention of the interesting his- 
torical, economical, and political questions to 
which they may give rise ; but simply to draw at- 
tention to the one fact — that in this respect both 
capital and labor are effectively paving tlie way, 
perhaps unknown to the extreme representatives 
of either interest, towards the increase of a strong 
and active cosmopolitan spirit of humanitarian- 
ism. And this spirit, at least as an ideal, is cer- 
tainly dominant in the minds of the best and wis- 
est people of our generation."^ 

Such is the united tendency and action of the 
two main factors in modern economic life which 
are supposed to be, and usually are, directly op- 
posed as inimical forces in the minds of the ex- 
treme representatives of each factor — namely, 
capital and labour. But in this great issue, fol- 
lowing out their separate and, at times, divergent 
courses and interests, they definitely tend to unite 



(1) But let no man from the camp of the capitalist (as some 
anti-Semitic German politicians have endeavoured to do) charge 
the Jews with being the instigators to Socialism, nor let a 
Socialist urge his fellow-partisans to an anti- Jewish riot; for 
the leading spirits of both these antagonistic forces were Jews: 
the bankers, such as the Rothschilds; and the economists, such 
as Lasalle and Karl Marx. The capitalists can not curse the 
Jews, and the Socialists can not dynamite the Jews without 
discerning their very leaders. 



127 



in one common goal of international federation 
and of opposition to war. 

More important still, however, than these two 
forces in economic modern life has been the grow- 
ing consciousness of the wliole population of the 
world as represented by all people of right feel- 
ings and of normal and clear thought. The sense 
of a common humanity, moved by the same feel- 
ings, aspirations and ideals and with essentially 
the same goals and interests to work for, has been 
growing in extent and in intensity throughout the 
whole world, irrespective of local, racial, or na- 
tional differences. Without any Utopian preten- 
tions, this basal conviction is so strong and real 
among even the least thoughtful, ordinary people, 
that, unless they are blinded by momentary pas- 
sions and relapses into bygone savagery, it is the 
leading attitude in mind in which all people con- 
sider their fellow beings in every part of the 
world. Moreover the actual facilities of Intercom- 
munication and of travel have grown to such an 
extent in every civilised country, for even the 
larger mass of the people that they have estab- 
lished affinities and direct relations numerous ac- 
tual points de rattachement, with the dwellers be- 
yond the boundaries of their own country or na- 
tionality, and these bonds of affinity and of moral 
or material contact have become so real, that they 
actually count for more than mere propinquity 
or even consanguinity within the one country and 
nation where no such affinity or contact exists. 
Passionate antagonism and hatred may be more 
intense between two neighboring villages, between 
two families and sometimes even between the 
members of one family than between the inhab- 
itants of distant countries. I should like to an- 

128 



ticipate here, what will be dealt with further on, 
and to add that such individuals and villages 
woTild at once enforce their enmity by violence 
were it not for the power of the law hacked by 
the police. Of course this feeling of human soli- 
darity exists especially amongst those who have 
attained a higher degree of moral and intellectual 
development through the channels of higher edu- 
cation in literature, science or art, and it exists 
still more between those who in their habits, their 
tastes, are guided by the same leading principles, 
and have assimilated into their very moral system 
the same rules and preferences of conduct in 
every detail of living. It is here that the formal 
side of modern national life is antiquated, in fact 
directly at variance with the inner substance of 
the life itself as it exists in the consciousness of 
modem people.^ 

(1) Since the above was written I find that the author of 
J' Accuse (p. 316 German edition) has expressed the same idea, 
even including the terms "perpendicular and horizontal division 
of humanity." But such agreement ought not to astonish, con- 
sidering that it is the conception of truth which we chose and 
that not only two people but all right-minded people ought to 
agree. 



129 



CHAPEE VI 

Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism 

The Perpendicular and Horizontal Divisions of 

Human Society 

To put it into a crude geographical formula; 
the subdivisions in the grouping of people have 
hitherto been on the perpendicular principle; 
whereas to correspond to what actually exists, 
they ought to be, and certainly will in the future 
be, on the horizontal principle. Human beings 
can no longer be subdivided by lines cutting into 
the earth and delimiting the frontiers of nations, 
still less imaginary and inaccurate lines of estab- 
lished or hypothetical racial origin. Modern com- 
munications have, as a matter of fact, erased 
these lines, and military frontiers can only arti- 
ficially restore them to importance for a short 
time. Even the sea no longer separates. As a 
matter of fact, the sea as a means of intercom- 
munication and of commercial transportation 
binds together more than it divides. It is often 
cheaper to send goods to distant countries thou- 
sands of miles by sea than a score of miles by rail 
in the same country. Nor can human hearts and 
minds, human tastes, and habits of living, be 
united or kept asunder by a geographical line. 

On the other hand, the horizontal line, which 
marks the moral and intellectual phases regulat- 
ing the lives of human beings all over the world, 
does really provide us with the principle of group- 
ing corresponding to actuality. To put it grossly : 

130 



an Englishman of the criminal classes has as little 
in common with an honourable, noble and high- 
minded Englishman, as a German, Frenchman or 
Italian of the same low standards has with that of 
the higher representatives of those nations. On 
the other hand, the criminals in each country can 
readily form a brotherhood with harmonious aims 
of life and habits ; as the high-minded gentlemen 
of each nation will at once find a common ground 
for living, for free, profitable, and x^leasant inter- 
course, and, above all, for the higher aspirations 
of life and living among those of the same type 
in other countries. These are extreme cases ; but 
the principle applies to all the finer shadings in 
the scale of population, of the living and thinking, 
and feeling of the nations all over the world. 

It is thus in direct contradiction to the actual 
consciousness of the peoples of Europe and 
America to feel enmity towards those in other 
countries with whom, on the contrary, there exist 
the strongest links of mutual regard and of 
brotherhood ; and certainly so-called national dif- 
ferences cannot justify an antagonism which goes 
to the length of bloodthirsty attempts to destroy 
their very lives. 

If this is true of the individual men and women 
composing the several states and nations, it also 
applies to the collective unity of population in the 
state. In spite of the German conception of the 
so-called Nazional-Siaaf, of the difference in ori- 
gin and race upon which the separateness of the 
several states is to be based, the states thus belie 
their very principles of union if they base antag- 
onism which leads to war upon ethnological 
grounds. For, as Germany is now constituted, 
the inhabitants of Holstein, shoulder to shoulder 

131 



with Slav Prussians, might have to fight the 
Dutchman and the Saxon Englishman with whom 
they claim a common racial origin — an origin 
which they might also claim with the Fleming and 
the inhabitants of Northern France. Perhaps 
even many Lombards in Northern Italy might 
thus have to meet in battle their racial brothers 
from Germany, who have joined the Prussian 
Slav. 

Nor can these antagonisms be based upon geo- 
graphical grounds and the political boundaries 
thus marked, for then Canada and Australasia 
could on these grounds not make common cause 
with Great Britain and Ireland. Nor even in the 
present condition of military powers can the 
coalition of states as units be based upon identity 
or similarity in the essential conception of what 
a state is and what its aims are. For the alli- 
ances and ententes belie any such principle of se- 
lection in their formation. The alliance between 
Germany, the Nazional-Staat, and the German 
section of the Hapsburg Empire, would be per- 
fectly intelligible and logical. But when we come 
to the Magyar and Slav and Rumanian constit- 
uents of that Empire the logical ground for such 
an alliance entirely vanishes, and may even in it- 
self constitute antagonism rather than unity or 
harmony of national aspirations. On the other 
hand, when we consider the essential nature of 
the State and of government and find the Repub- 
lic of France, with its vigorous aspirations to- 
wards political progress and reform, allied with 
the Russian autocracy, hitherto, of all European 
states, most clearly identified with political reac- 
tion; when we realize that but a short time ago 
the Republic of France manifested a most acute 

132 



phase of political antagonism to England; when 
we consider the natural antagonism between Wes- 
tern Liberalism and Eastern Autocracy and the 
affinity of principles and aspirations between the 
German democratic section and those of France 
and England; we meet with a confusion so com- 
plex and dense that, at least, one fact rises clearly 
before our mind: namely, that in the political 
grouping of the several states there is the same 
paradoxical discrepancy between the professed 
political conscience, the essence of political life, 
and the direct resultant activities of each state in 
realising its would-be professions of national ex- 
istence and of national aspirations.^ We actually 
do not know where we are and on what principle 
our national alliances are based : and still less why 
we should fight each other, excepting that the so- 
called State — or rather a section of its rulers — 
has commanded us to do so. 

The manifest net result of these convincing and 
constraining political conclusions, both as re- 
gards the position of individual citizens and of the 
State as a whole is, that our fundamental con- 
ception of what a State is and ought to be is 
wrong, and that we must bring it into harmony 
with the clear and well founded conception of 
modern man as in his sane moments and with the 
courage of his convictions he must formulate it.. 



(1) Since the above was written Italy has left the Triple. 
Alliance and has joined the Entente Powers, while Bulgaria has 
actually joined with Turkey and the Central Powers to fight 
the Serbians and the Russians. 



133 



CHAPTER VII 

Reconsideration of the True Modern Meaning 
OF State and of Patriotism 

It thus becomes quite evident that all our ideas 
concerning the State, and our consequent duties 
to the State, must be reconsidered in the light of 
the entirety of our modem life and our moral and 
social consciousness. This consideration of our 
duties raises the whole question of patriotism, no 
doubt one of the cardinal virtues of civilised man. 
No term has been used to stimulate man to higher 
and nobler deeds, and at the same time been 
abused to cover under the specious garb of en- 
thusiasm and of unselfishness, the narrow and 
even unprincipled passions of designing self-seek- 
ers. The term 'patriot' readily recalls to mind 
the words of Dr. Johnson: "The last resort of a 
scoundrel."^ 

Though we may feel that when nations are at 
war the time is not suited to a critical considera- 
tion of patriotic duties, we do feel that in more 
normal times, and when we are able dispassion- 
ately to examine political ethics and our own at- 
titude with regard to patriotism and our obliga- 



( 1 ) In an excellent article on Patriotism by Dr. Inge, Dean 
of St. Paul's, (Quarterly Review, July, 1915), with which I 
am in hearty agreement, the writer quotes some moralists "who 
have condemned patriotism" as pure egoism magnified and dis- 
guised. "Patriotism," says Ruskin, "is an absurd prejudice 
founded on an extended selfishness." Mr. Grant Allen calls it 
a vulgar vice — the national or collective form of the monopo- 
list instinct. Mr. Havelock Ellis allows it to be "a virtue — 
among barbarians." For Herbert Spencer it is "reflex egoism 
< — extended selfishness." 

134 



tion to the State, it is our bounden duty seriously 
to reconsider these fundamental conceptions and 
to modify public opinion in accordance with our 
feeling for right and wrong as produced by the 
development of modern civilised life. 

I would premise two general principles, which 
ought really to be axiomatic, in dealing with our 
political duties: (1) Our first duty to the State is, 
individually as citizens, to keep it up to the es- 
sential purposes of its existence. As the State 
is based upon community of past history, of pres- 
ent laws and customs, political and social, and of 
future aspirations, political, social, ethical, and 
cultural, we must contribute our share individu- 
ally to keep these essential aims before the Gov- 
ernment, as the "soul" of the nation or State. 
We must take heed that they are not submerged 
into lifeless formalism by the established powers 
of the State or that the State does not become ac- 
tually subversive of its moral principles, its nat- 
ional soul. 

(2) That each group of human duties must al- 
ways be kept in harmony with the higher and 
more fundamental — because universal — duties. 
Our patriotism need never clash with our duties 
to humanity and religion, provided we keep the 
State up to its essential purpose and ideals. 

When once man has risen above the animal 
stage in which he is entirely guided by uncon- 
scious instinct, by the need for self-preservation, 
which is extended, through the course of his in- 
stincts for propagation, to the support and ad- 
vance of his offspring, until the family is evolved 
as a distinct social entity, and through the family, 
the clan, the tribe, the community, and the nation ; 
when once he has risen above this purely selfish 

135 



instinct to the establishment of social laws, in 
which the interests of the individual are co-ordi- 
nated and the common interests of wider, and 
even less tangible and manifest, groups of indi- 
viduals assert themselves and lead to the estab- 
lishment of social and moral laws, which all tend 
to check the powerful and unimpeded course of 
selfishness — ^then begins the higher phase of civ- 
ilisation. This is marked, above all, not only by 
the recognition of ethical codes, in which reason- 
able altruism supersedes unreasoning egoism, but 
such moral codes transfuse the consciousness of 
men through the earliest phases of their infantile 
education, through every stage of their growth 
and life down to old age, until the civilised being 
develops, as an essential feature of his whole 
moral nature, the recognition of such an ethical 
code, and this converts the pure animal into, what 
Aristotle called, the Social Animal, ^JovTroXiTt/cov. 
In this scale of rising progress in the civi- 
lisation of man the reality and the effective- 
ness of the laws governing corporate, as opposed 
to individual, existence is a test of advance from 
the lower to the higher. George Eliot was thus 
right in convincingly reminding us of the fact 
that, 

"An individual man, to be harmoniously great, 
must belong to a nation of this order, if not in ac- 
tual existence yet existing in the past, in memory, 
as a departed, invisible, beloved ideal, once a real- 
ity, and perhaps to be restored. A common hu- 
manity is not yet enough to feed the rich blood of 
various activity which makes a complete man. The 
time is not come for cosmopolitanism to be highly 
virtuous, any more than for communism to suffice 
for social energy. I am not bound to feel for a 

136 



Cliiniaman as I feel for my fellow-countryman : 1 
am bound not to demoralise him with opium, not 
to compel him to my will by destroying or plunder- 
ing the fruits of his labour on the alleged ground 
that he is not cosmopolitan enough, and not to 
insult him for his want of my tailoring and relig- 
ion when he appears as a peaceable visitor on the 
London pavement. It is admirable in a Briton 
with a good purpose to learn Chinese, but it woula 
not be a proof of fine intellect in him to taste Chi- 
nese poetrj^ in the original more than he tastes 
the poetry of his own tongue. Affection, intelli- 
gence, duty, radiate from a centre, and nature has 
decided that for us English folk that centre can 
be neither China nor Peru. Most of us feel this 
unreflectingly ; for the affectation of undervaluing 
everything native, and being too fine for one's own 
country, belongs only to a few minds of no dan- 
gerous leverage. What is wanting is, that we 
should recognise a corresponding attachment to 
nationality as legitimate in every other people, 
and understand that its absence is a privation of 
the greatest good.'* 

There can be no doubt that by itself the human 
being who can subordinate his own immediate and 
individual interests and desires to wider common 
aims of a larger human group is in so far a nobler 
human being, and approaches more closely the 
ideal towards which man strives, than one devoid 
of such power. But we must never forget that 
this wider and corporate body which thus claims 
obedience and submission and self-effacement, 
must rest upon rational and ethical principles for 
the justification of its constraining laws and en- 
actments. It cannot be virtuous to subordinate 
will, reason and interest to an immoral or crimi- 
nal organisation. And in view of the fact that in 



137 



the course of human history not only the material 
conditions, but also the very spiritual conscious- 
ness of those constituting a corporate body, have 
changed and have developed, it is necessary and 
urgently desirable that we should periodically 
consider, examine, and test the relationship which 
these laws and enactments hold to the fundamen- 
tal principles of reason and of morality out of 
which they grew and for the realisation of which 
they exist. For it is a truth equally manifest in 
the history of things human, that laws and cus- 
toms have a tendency to become stereotyped and 
formalised, even to such a degree, that the very 
spirit is pressed out of them, until only the dead 
form remains and blocks the way to the realisa- 
tion of the spirit. Their action is then turned to 
the very opposite from the healthy primary 
source out of which they flowed: and, instead of 
tending towards altruism and the >^'uarding of col- 
lective rights for the individual constituents of 
the whole body, they serve pure egoism, in minis- 
tering only to the interests of a group, a clan, or 
a class, or even an individual. We may thus lay 
it down as a law, which almost sounds like a plati- 
tude, but is far from being recognised in the work- 
ing of actual life : that when corporate bodies, and 
the laws which support them, do not fulfil the 
definite ends for which they are incorporated and 
which their laws are to effect, their influence be- 
comes harmful and lowering instead of serving 
some higher purpose. 



138 



CHAPTER Vni 

COBPORATENESS. ThE AbUSE OF CoBPORATE AND 

Individual Loyalty 

Corporateness is only good when it embodies an 
ideal admitted and confirmed by reason and mor- 
ality : and the test of its right of existence and of 
our allegience to its enactments is its conformity 
to the spiritual ends and ideals of its existence. 

Moreover — and this is the most usual form of a 
baneful influence inherent in corporate bodies in 
their effect upon general life — the collective forms 
of such organised corporate existence will be ex- 
erted and made themselves felt in directions and 
in regions for which the activity and purpose of 
such bodies was in no way destined, in fact in 
spheres and objects different from, and often di- 
ametrically opposed to, their original purpose : so 
that the effect and the influence of the extended 
or perverted corporate activity becomes distinctly 
retarding and even destructive of effective social 
and moral ends. 

The actual channel of this nefarious activity of 
the corporate spirit — all the more dangerous and 
subversive because it is not manifest and is hid- 
den from the view of those who believe its course 
to be in the right direction — marks a general vir- 
tue, in itself of the highest order, called Loyalty, 
Discipline, or Esprit de Corps. Loyalty to a 
body whose interests and aims are unsocial and 
bad : discipline which subordinates the will as well 
as the reason and the moral sense to the advance- 

139 



ment of a body or an institution which may clash 
with reason and morality in any given case; the 
esprit de corps which, through thick and thin, 
bids and forces the members of the corps to act 
only in the interest of the body or the individual 
members of that body, over-riding and wrong- 
ing the claims of other bodies and the rights of 
other individuals, these all become harmful and 
may end in criminality. Of course in such mis- 
guided action loyalty always remains as a virtue 
in itself, which will satisfy the conscience of those 
thus misguided, and will blind them to the un- 
social and disastrous results of the definite alle- 
giance which they show to a mistaken, selfish or 
even criminal interference with wider duties and 
higher ultimate aims, to which all actions whether 
corporate or individual ought to be subordinated. 
I venture to believe that if we seriously consider 
the ordinary problems that meet us in our daily 
work and intercourse with our fellow men, we may 
be astonished, and shall be shocked, to find, how 
much actual harm, in every conceivable direction 
and manifestation of our life, is done by the mis- 
application of this corporate sense, blinding us 
to the consequence of our action and insinuating 
itself into the approval of our conscience under 
the garb of the one great virtue of loyalty. In the 
appointment to an office, humble or exalted, from 
that of an ordinary servant to a great public of- 
ficial, the just claims of the aspirant or applicant, 
based upon the suitability to perform the tasks of 
such an office, are wholly destroyed or seriously 
affected by the fact, that other competitors di- 
rectly or indirectly appeal to the corporate spirit 
on other grounds. They may have belonged to 
the same religious sect, come from the same dis- 

140 



trict, town or village, have attended the same 
school or university; — in short have had some lo- 
cal or social association with the person or per- 
sons who have the right of disposal or election — 
that this would-be sense of loyalty may be decisive 
in turning the scales in favour of the less suitable 
candidate and in counteracting the serious and 
just efforts, the long preparation and suitability 
of the absolutely best claimant, ultimately ruining 
or embittering his life. 

I must at once in this connection, anticipate and 
answer a possible objection and admit the claims . 
of 'corporate' association and knowledge to be 
considered where a well balanced choice is to be 
made, namely, in admitting that, ceteris paribus, 
the personal knowledge and confidence which may 
come from such corporate association and may 
be wanting in the case of those with whom it does 
not exist, is clearly and justly in favour of a can- 
didate, where all other claims are truly equal. 
We need not go so far into the regions of tra- 
vestied impartiality as the would-be just man who 
would disfavour and ignore the claims of any- 
body because they were closely related to him by 
blood or otherwise, however well fitted for the po- 
sition or the favour he might be. The extreme 
and perverted moral rigorism of Kant and its 
harmful effects were thus held up to ridicule by 
Schiller in one of his epigrams : 

Gerne dien ich den Freimden dock thu' ich es 
leider mitweigung. 

Und so wurmt es mich oft, dass ich nicht 
tugendhaft bin. 
and the answer : 

Da ist Rein miderer Rath, Du musst suchen, sie 
zu verachten, 

141 



Vnd mit Abscheu alsdann thun wie die Pflicht 
dir geheut. 

Gladly serve I my friends, alas, though, I do it 

with pleasure 
And thus often I fear that I not virtuous am. 
There is no other course, you must learn to- 

despise your friends. 
And with dislike you must do what stern duty 

demands. 

What I mean, however, is, that constant and 
widespread injustice and definite harm to the ful- 
filment of the world's needs in every aspect of 
human life result from the misapplication of this 
sense of corporate loyalty into directions with 
which the corporate existence, the aim and spirit 
of the body to which one thus shows this virtue,, 
have had nothing whatever to do. 

One of the commonest forms which this insidi- 
ous virtue takes with the most disastrous results,, 
is sectarian and party loyalties. You will con- 
stantly hear people say: *'I was born and bred in 
such a faith and I must stick to it It would be 
disloyal and treasonable — I should feel something 
of a traitor — were I to relinquish the sect and step 
out of the religious community in which I was 
bom — even if I no longer believe in its dogmas 
and articles of faith. ' ' So also : * * I was born and 
bred a Tory, or an old Whig, or a Conservative, 
or a Liberal, and I mean to die one. I should be 
a traitor were I to change parties." Now, it is 
just in these two domains of life that, by being 
loyal to a sect or party, we are disloyal to our 
highest function and duty as intelligent and moral 
social beings, that we are betraying the supreme 
trust of humanity and of the divinity in man — his 
obligations to truth and justice. To lead people 

142 



to believe that we are of a faith we have dis- 
carded, that we approve of political principles or 
definite political enactments which we do not deem 
to be conducive to the good of national life and 
the improvement of society are acts of treason, 
not of loyalty: It is obstructing duty and truth, 
besides retarding all progress and stultifying, or 
at least delaying the advancement of the human 
race and human life. 

The more you consider the effects of this misap- 
plied corporate spirit in every conceivable aspect 
of life, the more you will find that you have come 
to the root of one of the greatest social evils. 
Consider the actual life of any community, and 
the interests and social claims of the inhabitants 
in each, with a view to realising how the normal, 
reasonable and just conditions of social life, even 
the business and working side of it, are inter- 
fered with, mis-directed, and distorted by influ- 
ences and considerations which have nothing 
whatever to do with the actual course and de- 
velopment of that life itself. It will then be seen 
how they retard, not only the harmony and higher 
development of social existence, but how they im- 
pede the work and business of the community. All 
this mischief may spring from a mistaken sense 
ultimately arising out of the virtue of loyalty. 
Moreover, this influence of subconscious loyalty 
may be associated with the highest forms of or- 
ganisation in spiritual life, such as religion, po- 
litical convictions, social traditions all good in 
themselves, but mis-directing the functions for 
which originally and essentially they were called 
into being. The marriage of two people, drawn 
to each other by true affection and harmony of as- 
pirations and tastes, may be made impossible, be- 

143 



cause they happen to belong to different sects in 
formal religion, though their truly religious be- 
liefs might be the same. Individuals and families 
and those naturally destined to be friends may be 
kept asunder because of these reasons ; social con- 
ditions stereotyped and formalised, until they 
have lost all the spirit out of which they grew in 
the life of the past, may act in the same way. 
Party politics, even intensified in their antagon- 
isms by would-be religious or social tradition, di- 
rectly interfere with the free flow of social life, 
create antagonisms, and even prevent co-opera- 
tion for an end which both parties deem just and 
advisable, to the detriment of the common life 
about them. Even in a great war, and with the 
imminent danger to the very exist'^nce of a whole 
nation, petty partisanship in various forms may 
intrude its disintegrating influence and weaken 
the strength of united effort to save the country. 
Fortunately for us, up to the present, party an- 
tagonism has to a great extent been kept under 
and in abeyance, but we can see it lifting its head 
and ready to spring at any moment. And the 
worst of it is, that he who thus manifests loyalty 
and esprit de corps in one of these narrower cor- 
porate bodies is pleased with himself for doing so 
and is praised by others for his loyalty. It is not 
only the coarsened and hardened "jobbing" poli- 
tician who lives and lets live by 'graft,' who con- 
siders it right, and is called trustworthy and loyal 
by his henchmen, because he will override all the 
claims of municipal justice and good government, 
the interests of his fellow-townsmen, and the dic- 
tates of purity and honesty to which the con- 
science of the community has subscribed, in order 
to further the party ends and the material inter- 

144 



ests of his fellow conspirators. In a lesser and 
more refined degree you will meet with this spirit 
everywhere, and in the definite cases that will 
come to your notice day by day. Justice and rea- 
son and morality are trampled under foot because 
of this distorted ideal of loyalty. 

The way to remedy this widespread evil, strik- 
ing at the very roots of justice, of social good 
feeling, of happiness and prosperity for individu- 
als, communities and nations, is, in the first place, 
carefully to test, whether the corporate bodies are 
fulfilling the ideal functions for which they were 
instituted; and, in the second place, to guard 
against the misapplication of the purpose, meth- 
ods and aims of one such body encroaching upon 
the sphere of another Avith which it has nothing to 
do, and in w4iich its action thus becomes detri- 
mental. Above all he must so co-ordinate the dif- 
ferent spheres of duty and loyalty, that the wider 
and higher, the ultimate and universally accepted 
aims and ideals, are not sacrificed to the narrower 
and lower interests, however urgent the claim of 
the more proximate duty may be upon us. What 
is most needed in the well regulated life of indi- 
viduals, as well as in larger social bodies, is co- 
ordination, in which the several duties are har- 
monised and regulated in due proportion, so that 
the rational and moral scale is clearly established, 
which avoids all artificial antagonism and unrea- 
sonable clashing, and thus conforais to the har- 
monised development of life. All will then tend 
to the final realisation of the highest ideals which 
humanity can establish in each period of its 
growth and development. It will then be found 
that each individual call of duty, including that 
of loyalty to the collective body with which we are 

145 



associated, fits into the wider and harmonious 
ethical whole, and that the fulfillment of the one 
duty need not clash with that of the other, pro- 
vided always that we can maintain that sense of 
proportion in which the higher and wider com- 
prises the narrower and lower manifestations, 
and receives its real moral justification from the 
fact that the several constituent parts all tend 
to the advancement of the great whole. 

Here too — and above all here — the subdivision 
of bodies and institutions must be horizontal and 
not perpendicular. They must not be due to the 
thoughtless and unreasonable and unjust accidents 
of locality, of contiguity, even of supposed con- 
sanguinity — our associates must be shosen, not 
because they happen to dwell in the same street, 
have been thrust into the same occupation in mak- 
ing their living, or because their father or grand- 
fathers happened to have belonged to one or the 
other association ; but because of the similarity of 
social character or tastes, because of the moral and 
intellectual affinity in thought and in habits and 
in ultimate ideals. On the other hand, when we 
are called upon to act together for a definite pur- 
pose in business or for public and political pur- 
poses, local as well as national, or a definite task 
that requires the concentrated effort directed by 
expert knowledge, we must concentrate our ef- 
forts upon the task itself and not be distracted by 
the social affinities which guide us naturally and 
rightly into the groupings regulating our social 
life. 

I have just said that even the considerations of 
consanguinity are not to act out of place and out 
of proportion in the general scale of our duties. 
And this may help me to make clearer in a par- 

146 



tial, though general, outline the practical work- 
ing of such a scale of collective duties, the need 
for which constantly thrusts itself forward in ac- 
tual life. There can be no doubt that we all have 
duties to our immediate family. We must guard 
its integrity, add to its prosperity, maintain its 
good fame, support those members who require 
our help, and further their interests to the best of 
our ability in every direction. This is a para- 
mount duty from which no right-minded man or 
woman — however unprejudiced and advanced in 
their habits of thought and in their critical insight 
into the very foundations of all laws governing 
the world — can escape. But there is no reason 
why obedience to this fundamental command- 
ment of civilised life should clash with our wider 
duties towards the community in which we live 
and towards the nation of which we are citizens. 
Above all, there is no reason why it should clash 
with those wider and general duties to Truth, 
Charity, Honesty, Self-respect, and the higher re- 
alisation of the harmonious life of humanity fit- 
ting into our widest conception of a still wider 
cosmical harmony. On the contrary, I venture to 
say that, in the humble and old-fashioned sense of 
the word, a good son and a good daughter are 
most likely to be most efficient workers in the lo- 
cality in which they may live ; that they make the 
best citizens for the nation or the Empire, and,, 
in their several walks of life — whether concerned 
in manual, intellectual, or artistic work — they will 
be the more efficient from thus being good sons 
and daughters. On the other hand, I maintain 
with equal confidence that those who raise this 
one and only and restricted form of corporate 
duty towards the family to a fetish, draw high 

147 



and dense and impermeable barriers round their 
affections and sympathies and their obligations, 
and thns block out from their view and from 
their hearing all the sights and all the calls 
upon their activity and their sympathy in the 
wider regions of communal existence, and the 
higher and ultimate ideals of human life, will 
not only cripple their manhood and womanhood 
and stunt the growth and development of their 
true nature as human social beings, but that, by 
this very restriction and compression of their 
sympathies and their power of altruistic affec- 
tion, they will actually not be such good sons and 
daughters, such affectionate and unselfish mem- 
bers of a family, which they would have been had 
they co-ordinated this one group of duties in their 
proper place and in their proper proportion to the 
scale of duties, rising to the highest religious 
phase of man's conception of human society and 
the world at large. ^ 

As the Chauvinist is inferior to the patriot be- 
cause he has limited the range of his altruistic 
imagination and his habits of unselfish activity, 
and will be, within the state itself, the more vio- 
lent partisan, and with the party, the more in- 
tense self-seeker, so the people whose interests 
and sympathies are entirely limited to the ad- 
vancement of their own family will be more selfish, 
when the clash comes between their own desires 
and those of the other members of their own 
family. And this is so, because the powers of af- 
fection and of altruistic devotion must be prac- 
tised and strengthened in every direction in order 
to increase their vitality and vigour; while the 
more they are limited and contracted, the less do 



(1) See Jewish Question, etc., 1892, by the author, pp. 90, seq. 
148 



tliey become efficacious when tested in any given 
instance. Those who believe and maintain that 
the best hater is the best lover; that those love 
best who concentrate their affection upon one be- 
ing or one friend and shut themselves out from 
the rest of the world ; that those who diffuse their 
feelings and passions among a wider range of 
friends and objects and aims are supposed 
thereby to weaken the concentrated energy of 
their affection and devotion when turned upon 
any one definite recipient of their love, are really 
misled by a false analogy. Consciously or un- 
consciously they are led to believe that affection, 
sympathy, enthusiasm, and altruism exist in the 
human breast in a certain quantity, like a sub- 
stance, solid or fluid, of which each individual can 
expend a certain amount and no more. The larg- 
er the field over which you expand and spread 
it, the thinner the layer in each definite point of 
the field covered. Thus he who loves many, they 
believe, can love no one as much as he who loves 
only one. But the analogy fails, because it is 
not a substance but a function and power which 
underlies our affections and our sympathies, and 
even our passions ; and powers grow with use, as 
they dwindle and atrophise with the restriction 
of such use. There may be extreme limits to 
either: but the power of affection and of sym- 
pathy in the heart is like the strength of the mus- 
cles which increase as we develop them. And it 
is thus that the good son will be a better mem- 
ber of his family through extending his interests 
and his affections far beyond the limits of his own 
hearth. If charity begins at home, it must not re- 
main at home. Thus, without clashing, we can 
proceed upwards and beyond the narrower limits 

149 



of our duties towards the community in which, we 
live, and beyond that, to the State of which we 
are citizens, and there need be no clashing of well 
directed interests. 

In this progression of duties, from the narrower 
and immediate to the wider and ultimate, the same 
considerations with regard to our duty to the 
State and to humanity at large hold good as those 
we have just noted in our duties to our family in 
their relation to the wider duties. The questions 
here involved concern the duties of the true pa- 
triot. We are confronted by that much discussed 
and difficult problem of the relation between true 
patriotism and what has been called cosmopolitan- 
ism. The two are supposed to clash; and it has 
justly been said, in the passage quoted above from 
George Eliot, that "The time is not yet come 
for cosmopolitanism to be highly virtuous, any 
more than for communism to suffice for social en- 
ergy. ' ' As the epithet of patriot is so frequently 
abused by him who wishes to escape from ordi- 
nary duties, so cosmopolitanism has often been 
used by those who wish to shirk the duties of 
citizenship and pride themselves upon a wider 
vision and a higher scale of morality than those 
who, without assertion or pretence, follow the dic- 
tates of the traditional duties in the conditions in 
which they live. As Tennyson says : 

'He is the best cosmopolite 

Who loves his native country best.^ 

On the other hand, I have ventured to supple- 
ment these lines of the great poet in maintaining 
that, 

He loves his native country best 
Who loves mankind the more. 

150 



As we have just seen in regard of the family 
the wider community, so we shall find that the 
citizen whose scale of morality reaches far beyond 
his own countiy and embraces the whole of hu- 
manity, nay, even includes wider cosmical and 
religious conceptions and ideals, is more likely to 
be a good citizen and a true patriot. 



151 



CHAPTER IX 

The Wrong and the Right Nationalism 

We have before considered the effect of Chau- 
vinism upon good citizenship. To be a good citi- 
zen also implies, first, that we should have an in- 
telligent and thoroughly thoughtful conception of 
what the State means and what in consequence its 
laws enact; and, second, that we should do our 
share to make this State a true expression of its 
purpose and to fashion its laws in accordance with 
the progressive needs of highest human nature 
and the ultimate ideals of humanity. No State 
has a right to exist the aims and objects of which 
run directly counter to those of humanity at large. 
WTien a State develops, or rather degenerates, 
into such a condition it turns from a moral State 
to an immoral State, and ought to be reformed or 
removed from the face of the earth. It might be 
an over-statement to say, that a State is formed 
for the definite and direct purpose of confirming 
and advancing the moral aims of humanity : but I 
doubt whether any political cynic or modern Ma- 
chiavelli would venture to hold, that the aims of 
any State are avowedly immoral and clash with 
the supreme interests of humanity. The first 
duty of every citizen, so far as he can, and to how- 
ever minimal degree, to affect the constitution 
and function of the State of which he is a citizen, 
to bring the laws and the activity of his country 
and its government into harmony with the uni- 
versally valid and recognised interests and mor- 

152 



als of a wider humanity. He can then rest as- 
sured that in following this course he is perform- 
ing the chief duties of a patriot. 

' ' My country ! right or wrong, ' ' may be a good 
epigrammatic — and therefore exaggerated — 
statement of the duties arising out of a peculiarly 
abnormal condition. Just as a good son or a de- 
voted wife might say ''My father" or "My hus- 
band, right or wrong." The son and the wife 
can never escape from certain duties which this 
close relationship imposes upon them. They may 
provide for the best legal advice, minister as far 
as possible to the comforts which their criminal 
relative needs when he is confined in prison and 
even support him as he is led to the gallows, but 
they dare not uphold, and thus become party to 
the crime which he has committed. Before he had 
become a criminal and after he had been released 
however, it was their duty to do all in their power 
to prevent him from falling or relapsing into 
crime. Though we must follow the call to arms 
when our country is at war, we must do our best 
to prevent an unjust war and to make war among 
civilised people impossible in the future. The an- 
alogy I have just adduced fails, however, in one 
most important point ; namely, in that the family 
is a body definitely fixed by manifest and immut- 
able biological laws of consanguinity, while the 
State is not. The individual has nothing to do 
with the establishment of such a relationship in 
the family: he is born a son, and the paternal re- 
lation of the father to the child is a definite physi- 
cal fact, but humanity has risen above the purely 
patriarchal conception of the state. The modern 
State is a voluntary creation of intelligent human 
beings, based upon fundamental ideas, to the re- 

153 



alisation of which they all gave their consent, 
guided by their best thought and confirmed by 
their moral consciousness. Whatever it may 
have been in the past, however varied and num- 
erous may have been the different forms under 
which that great creation of social being mani- 
fests itself in histoiy, no one of the earlier con- 
ceptions will fit the facts and the needs, the po- 
litical convictions of modern man. 

In the very able and lucid discourse, "Qu' est 
ce qu' une nation," Ernest Renan answers the 
question as to the essence of what a State or a 
nation really is. After convincingly proving that 
the modern State does not depend for its essence 
upon race, language, interests, religious affinities, 
geography, or military necessity, he then declares 
that a nation is a "Soul," a spiritual principle: 
"Une nation est une ame, un principe spirituel," 
and he then defines what constitutes such a 
■"Soul" such a spiritual principle. The Soul 
arises out of the common possession of a rich 
inheritance of memories ; the spiritual principle 
is the actual consent, the desire to live together, 
the will to continue and to realise in the common 
life the undivided heritage which has been thus 
received. I strongly recommend the reader then 
to study the eloquent exposition of this philos- 
opher and great master of style. The memories, 
the inheritance of the past, the sutferings and 
struggles which have given the soul to a nation 
and constitute one of its strongest elements of 
unity, culminate, in what we call its civilisa- 
tion (Kultur), the degree of civilisation to which 
each country has attained. Race and country, 
language and religious affinities, interests and, 
above all, self-preservation (which corresponds 

154 



to what Renan called military necessities) may 
all have contributed in the past to produce this 
unity and may powerfully urge, as they justify, 
•each citizen to preserve that unity. Each one 
has its claims. But we must guard against urg- 
ing the claims of each out of proportion to the 
wholeness of this organism. It is a far-reaching 
error to believe, that the more apparently fund- 
amental, tangible and patently manifest one of 
these elements is, the more urgent become its 
claims to consideration for the State and for the 
support of such claims on the part of the indi- 
vidual. The very fact that country is often syn- 
onymous with State, that people or nation are 
used indifferently to convey the idea of race, that 
religious differences were frequently in history 
the direct causes of antagonism and war between 
States, might make each of these elements ap- 
pear decisive and essential connotations in the 
conception of a State. But there are other ele- 
ments which go to the making of a nationality ap- 
parently remote, but none the less effective. 
These are the history of morals as well as the 
common intellectual achievement of the several 
peoples themselves. They may be more directly 
and potently creative of the ' ' Nation 's Soul ' ' than 
the other physical factors mentioned above. We 
again have the horizontal and not the perpendic- 
ular division forced upon us. In the epigram- 
matic — perhaps the exaggerated — form of two 
mottoes to a book^ — I attempted to convey this 
truth by maintaining, first "that the abolition of 
Slavery and the Renaissance are as much a father- 
land as are England, Germany, France, or the 



(1) The Jewish Question, etc., New York, 1894. 

155 



United States" ; and, second, (with the doubtful in- 
troduction of a newly coined word) "that there is 
a strong bond of humanity; but there is also 
the golden chain of gentlemanity. " I endeav- 
oured to suggest in these epigrams that the com- 
mon achievements of civilisation, upon which 
the actual consciousness of the people in a civ- 
ilised State rests, are as direct and potent a 
tie — and certainly ought to be so — in binding to- 
gether into a social and political unity the people 
with whom these achievements of a common hu- 
manity have entered into the very bone and mar- 
row of their moral and intellectual existence, as 
are race, geography, formal religion or interests. 
What I miss in the excellent exposition of 
Renan — though I thoroughly agree with his criti- 
cal examination and rejection of the several ele- 
ments that are commonly supposed to determine 
the conception of a State, and though I agree with 
the soul-giving importance of common memories 
and common suffering in the past — what I miss 
is, that he has not clearly considered the present 
and future activities of such a collective entity 
as a State in confirming these memories and in 
preparing for more definite activities and ideals 
in the future. We must add in the first place to 
the elements he has adduced, the common laws 
and customs and, in the second place, the moral 
consciousness of this ''Soul" of a State. These 
common laws and customs do not only direct the 
actual life, the public opinion, the tone and moral 
of a community or a nation, and give it a common 
consistency and individuality: but they also lead 
directly to the formation of a political conscious- 
ness, manifesting itself in the codified or uncodi- 
fied constitution of each nation. And it is this 

156 



immediate self-expression of a State in its politi- 
cal constitution, itself the outcome of all these 
several state-forming elements which give it its 
most clearly manifest individuality and person- 
ality in its relation to the citizens within and to 
other States without. But the second element of 
equal importance in the making and maintenance 
of a State are its moral and social ideals, towards 
which as a whole it tends, and which give it the 
ultimate sanction of the best that is in each one 
of its citizens. For as it is not enough now to 
say that the greatest happiness to the greatest 
number satisfies our political conscience as it 
did that of the doctrinaires of the Manchester 
school, it is not even enough to say that we wish 
to realise our Kultur within ourselves and even 
to impose it upon others; for this must imply 
that we are satisfied that our Kultur is worthy 
of thus being realised and desirable in the in- 
terests of those upon whom we wish to impose 
it. In one word it means that we must bring 
our national and political ethics into conformity 
with general human ethics. Unless we can hon- 
estly convince ourselves that the ultimate aim 
of the State is, not only to satisfy and to elevate 
its citizens, but to contribute to the welfare and 
the advancement of humanity at large, we can- 
not feel honestly convinced that our legislative 
and political activities are following the right 
course. But when we are satisfied that our na- 
tional activities are thus harmonised with the 
wider and ultimate ethical laws of humanity, we 
can actually adopt, not only cosmopolitan ideals, 
but definite cosmopolitan duties and aims with- 
out in any way clashing with our duties as 
patriots. 

157 



In any case we then find that race and geo- 
graphical position are not enough to separate or 
isolate us from the rest of mankind: that what 
I have called the perpendicular subdivision must 
be replaced by the horizontal : and that our ideals, 
even as applied to the State itself as a separate 
entity, recognise Humanity and the supreme laws 
of ethics in the light of humanity that is, and the 
desirable humanity that is to follow, and are to 
be subordinated under these supreme laws and 
adapted to these supreme ends. We then find 
that, not only is war between such civilised na- 
tions a monstrosity, but that actually there is the 
strongest bond uniting together all those who hold 
the same convictions and who cherish the same 
aspirations for the future of man and the ad- 
vancement of civilisation as powerful, if not more 
powerful, than those which bind human beings 
together in active or in passive community on the 
ground merely of race, topography, or local pro- 
pinquity, or community of material interests. 

Cosmopolitanism thus becomes a fact which in 
no way clashes with patriotism and with loyalty 
to the State of which we are citizens. We shall 
then have a real federation based, not upon fortui- 
tous conditions and fluctuating interests, but upon 
common ideals which are more real and more last- 
ing than the supposed practical and opportunistic 
motives in the daily life of the unthinking. There 
is no danger, moreover, of the destruction of in- 
dividuality in each separate State as a result of 
such wider and actual federation. Nor does such 
wider federation in any way imply absorption of 
the smaller States and nationalities by the larger. 
On the contrary the freedom and iDdi%^ duality of 



158 



the smaller States will thereby be assured and 
strengthened. 

There is an insidious fallacy in the reasoning 
of many people who worship the picturesqueness 
and variety in a manifestation of individual char- 
acter from a supposedly artistic, but really from 
a theatrical and sham-artistic, motive and point 
of view. They fear the loss of picturesqueness in 
the world when, through such federation the hu- 
man races are brought actually more closely to- 
gether. Such romanticists deplore the spread of 
freedom and equality in the opportunities of life, 
of sanitary improvements, of saving of arduous 
and degrading labour, of the increase of all com- 
forts in living to the wretched toiler of the field 
or artisan, as compared with the misery of medi- 
aeval servitude which they glorify through the 
distorted and falsified vision of a degraded cow- 
ardice as regards the present and of an illusory 
mental obliquity as regards the past. They sel- 
fishly would like to keep for their own puny the- 
atricality and artistic enjoyment, the hind and serf 
dwelling in the most wretched squalor in his pictur- 
esque hovel and issuing thence in his picturesque 
costume, as, with cringing servility, he salutes his 
over-lord and shuffles to and from wretched toil 
from morning into weary night in order to keep 
body and soul together for himself and his starv- 
ing children. He deplores the introduction of all 
those improvements in living, in education of 
mind and character, which rob people of this 
''picturesque'' individuality and raise them col- 
lectively to a higher standard of human existence ; 
as he regrets the facile means of modern trans- 
portation, not only rightly when they wantonly 
destroy the beauties of nature, but because they 

159 



make more accessible to the masses of even ig- 
norant and miappreciative toilers the opportuni- 
ties of raising their physical vitality and their 
spiritual taste. And, more or less consciously, 
he deplores this because it interferes with the 
quiet and secluded enjoyment of these rare beau- 
ties by those who deem themselves the supremely 
privileged aesthetic aristocracy of the world, and 
whose enjoyment in its concentrated seclusion 
from all interference is disturbed by the wider 
participation, as the mystic and sacred circles of 
the chosen loses its exclusive solidarity.^ 

But there is no danger that justified and de- 
sirable individuality as regards states, or com- 

(1) The following passage from my "The Work of John 
Rvskin" deals with this question, p. 151. "There is a truth 
Btrongly put by Euskin for which he would have gained more 
universal recognition if the statements of it had been more 
moderate and in conformity with fact, namely, the duty of 
maintaining the land which we inhabit in the conditions con- 
ducive to health, and with the careful guarding and preservation 
of the natural and historical beauties, which are, to omit all 
their spiritual qualifications, real national possessions of the 
highest economical value. To allow the smoke from the chim- 
neys to turn pure air into pestilential miasmata, to see beautiful 
streams and rivers defiled, to witness the most lovely and unique 
scenes ruthlessly robbed of their chief charms of natural beauty 
- — these are losses which, if they do not bear comparison with 
actual industrial loss to individual members or groups of the 
community, will outweigh them heavuy. The day may come 
when one of the most important functions of the government 
concerned with the internal affairs of a nation will be to secure 
and guard the public lands for the purposes of national health 
and of national delectation. 

But when Ruskin complains that the delightful silence which 
reigned in some rural districts is now disturbed by the life of 
industry, and that portions of Switzerland, which he and other 
kindred spirits could once enjoy in comparative seclusion are 
vulgarised by numbers of uneducated tourists; when he com- 
plains of the very facility of approach to many of these sacred 
haunts brought about by the railways, and the picnics which 
do not agree with the exquisite musings of the solitary votary 
of nature, we can not help feeling that this arises not only from 
a romantic but from an essentially unsocial spirit. There can 
be no doubt that our enjoyment must be impaired by the reduc- 
tion of what stimulates our highest emotions to a commonplace; 
but we must willingly make this sacrifice when we consider the 
great gain accruing to hundreds or thousands where before it 
but reached units." 

160 



munities, localities, or individuals, will be de- 
stroyed by the realisation of such wider federa- 
tion towards a common end for the whole of hu- 
manity. On the contrary, war and conquest are 
the levellers, and this war does not only mean the 
clash of arms and the destruction of lives, but it 
also means a commercial and industrial war as 
pitiless and as destructive as that of rifle and 
cannon which is being waged mercilessly through- 
out the modern world by the upholders of the 
highest civilisation. Militarism and commercial- 
ism are the enemies of all individuality as, on the 
other extreme hand are socialism and the blind 
and unintelligent tyranny of the trades unions. 
Freed from these levellers of all superiority and 
genius, the human individual and the collective 
groups, local or ethnical, and the separate States, 
will more freely and more effectually develop 
their own individualities and contribute to the 
harmony and progress of humanity as a whole. 
The separate States all possessing their 'souls,' 
as Renan has called them, will assert, refine and 
strengthen their national souls. They exist now 
in spite of all the forces that go to their undoing ; 
and we can readily recognise them; and each one 
of them contributes to the health and vigour and 
the ennobling of the soul of humanity — nay, of 
the World-soul. I may be allowed here to quote 
the words which I addressed to the Congress of 
German Journalists when they met in London in 
1906: 

"The positive aim, on the other hand, which we 
must have before us in this meeting, is the safe- 
guarding and the advancement of that Western 
European civilisation which rests upon us all to- 
gether. I do not mean by this that this civilisa- 

161 



tion is tied down to the European continent. The 
United States is an integral part of it, and, to 
single out one personality, I am sure you will all 
agree that no living man is more truly and effect- 
ually moved by these ideals than President Roose- 
velt. Moreover, if in the Far East Japan shows 
her sincere eagerness to adopt and ma*ie ner own 
the best that is in our civilisation — the best of our 
ideals, not merely our material achievements- - 
they too will form an organic part in this great 
confederation. Yet to feel this community and to 
further its aims, it is not at all necessary that we 
should all be the same. On the contrary, it is 
here, within this sphere of common union, that 
true Nationalism has its fullest and most effective 
play. We are each of us, in our peculiar national 
character and individuality, necessary to the main- 
tenance and advance of this common civilisation. 
If, to take but our three great Western nations, I 
might venture upon a bold generalisation' — they 
are always inaccurate — I would say that in the 
past history of thought and culture and public lite, 
England has often performed the function of in- 
vention and initiation; this was the achievement 
of a Shakespeare, of a Bacon, a Newton, a Darwin, 
and, in public life, of the birth of Parliamentarism. 
Germany has with glorious vigour stood before 
the world as the country of intellectual depth and 
sincerity of mind, of thoroughness and spiritual- 
isation of man's achievements in all spheres of un- 
ending perseverance in the fight for truth, carry- 
ing everything into the realm of highest and wid- 
est conception. France is the nation of artistic 
imagination and courage, which leads tliem not to 
fear the attempt of carrying into actual life, into 
palpitating realisation, the bold ideas conceived 
by the intellect ; it has, as a nation, the artistic, the 
creative, the passionate courage in giving actual 
form to the world of thought. Germany educates 

162 



the mind. England the character. France the 
imagination which gives vitality to both. In the 
peaceful interpenetration of these t-orces our eth- 
ical life will be raised. All three of us, fighting 
with our several weapons, working in our several 
methods, approaching the common goal from our 
different roads, lead mankind to what we are 
bound to consider the best and the highest. ' ' 

The unity and solidarity of the federation of 
civilised States is the great reality even now in 
the consciousness of all right thinking men all 
over the world. At this moment it rises in the 
hearts of countless men, from the illiterate un- 
skilled labourer to the philosopher, in violent 
though helpless protest, not only against the bar- 
barism and cruelty and treachery, but against the 
absolute stupidity, of a war such as is now de- 
vasting Europe, jeopardising the prosperity of 
the countries farthest removed from the scene of 
iwar, and setting the hands of the clock back for 
generations in the progress of the world. And 
the irony of it all is that this unity has received 
deliberate and powerful expression in the actual 
international politics of our own days — namely, 
in the Hague Convention. But what have we wit- 
nessed within the last few months? That the de- 
liberate resolutions passed in concert by all the 
powerful States and subscribed to by them with 
their sign-manual and political authority in the 
same spirit that a bond and contract is recognised 
as binding in the business of daily life between 
individuals, corporate commercial bodies and all 
other organisations of civilised States, have been 
ignored, spurned and set aside ruthlessly, and 
have made way for the practice of most savage 
barbarians without even the chivnlry that these 

163 



may have possessed — man turned to beast and ad- 
ding his cunning to the savagery of the hungry 
animal. We ask ourselves: How was this pos- 
sible? How could the ^vhole civilised world with 
its so-called public opinion, its moral conscious- 
ness, even its common interests stand aside and 
see itself ignored and flaunted in the face of its 
all-powerful will! The answer is: first, because 
there are many people — even would-be philoso- 
phers, and psychologists — who maintain that war 
is an inevitable attribute in the life of nations, 
that it is essential to man, even man who has risen 
from the pre-historic savage to the citizenship of 
the most highly civilised states ; and second, that 
there is no right without might, or rather that 
the right cannot prevail unless there is might to 
enforce it. 



164 



CHAPTER X 

The Disease of Wab 

1. It has actually been stated, that war is a "bi- 
ological necessity. ' ' Who has ever heard, or who 
can ever conceive of a biological necessity which 
means the survival of the unfittest — the slaving 
of those who are, not only physically, but mor- 
ally the superior members of the community? It 
is a wanton perversion by man of nature's pri- 
mary law of the Survival of the Fittest. As Dr. 
Inge has pointed out: 

''Its dysgenic effect by eliminating the strong- 
est and healthiest of the population, while leaving 
the weaklings at home to be fathers of the next 
generation, is no new discovery. It has been sup- 
ported by a succession of men, such as Tenon, 
Duf au, Foissac, de Lapouge, and Richet in France ; 
Tiedemann and Seeck in Germany, Guerrini in 
Italy ; Kellogg and Starr Jordon in America. The 
case is indeed overwhelming. The lives destroyed 
in war are nearly all males, thus disturbing the 
sex equilibrium of the population ; they are in the 
prime of life, at the age of greatest fecundity; 
and they are picked from a list out of which from 
30 to 40 per cent have been rejected for physical 
unfitness. It seems to be proved that the children 
bom in France during the Napoleonic wars were 
poor and undersized — 30 millimetres below the 
normal height. War combined with religious ce- 
libacy to ruin Spain. 'Castile makes men and 
wastes them,' said a Spanish writer. "This sub- 
lime and terrible phrase sums up the whole of 

165 



Spanish history." Shiller was right : 'Immer der 
Krieg verschlingt die besten.' " 

We may add that, in countries with voluntary 
enlistment, like England, the dysgenic effect with 
regard to the transmission of moral qualities is 
still more pronounced. For it is the bravest and 
all those possessed of the highest sense of duty 
who enlist, while the moral 'wasters' remain at 
home. 

Those who maintain the justice of war as an in- 
eradicable element in the constitution of the hu- 
man being can claim logical consistency when, in 
defining war, they maintain that it is the arbitra- 
ment of superior power and not of reasoned 
justice. The moment reasoned justice is intro- 
duced in any degree, there is no logical reason 
why it should not be introduced in its entirety. 
You cannot deal with justice as with the curate's 
<egg. There is no partial justice. If you have the 
power in any way to curb the realisation of might 
in this struggle of adjudicating right, there is no 
reason w^hy the whole of might should not be sub- 
ordinated to reasoned right and bow to its com- 
mands. War governed by law is a contradiction 
in terms. It may be said that in the duel of 
former days, as in the prize fight, certain laws 
have been enforced regulating the contest and es- 
tablishing a sub-division of law within the clash- 
ing of power to satisfy the sense of fair play. But 
it must never be forgotten that in the case of the 
duel and of the prize fight there was a superior 
legal t)ower outside and beyond, which could at 
any moment have caused the appeal to a decision 
by power to be entirely quashed and discontinued. 
Moreover, from a wider point of view, even the 



166 



introduction of this partial aspect of law in the 
form of an assurance of fair play in the process 
of the actual fight did not remove the iniquity 
that the contestants might not be fairly matched 
by mere physical preparation or by the concen- 
tration of practice, ending in professional skill on 
the part of one of the contestants who sacrifices 
the whole of his normal humanity and claims to 
social eligibility by making a mere fighting ma- 
chine of himself. 

The analogy therefore does not hold good when 
it comes to States with, no superior constraining 
power to impress the dictates of equity and law 
above them, such as exists in the case of contests 
between individuals. If, therefore, the whole ele- 
ment of reasoned justice is eliminated from the 
arbitrament of power in ^var, it is quite consis- 
tent to maintain (as has frankly and cynically 
been done by German historians and politicians) 
that power must be made as fearful as possible, 
and there is thus no limit to brutality and sav- 
agery. 

That this is in flagrant contradiction to the 
moral consciousness and to the public opinion of 
all civilised nations need hardly be insisted upon. 
Nor can we believe that the theories and the prac- 
tices of the German militarists who are respon- 
sible for this war are really endorsed by the vast 
majority of the German people and wjuld not be 
repudiated by the thoughtful and highly moral 
representatives of that nation. 

The chief fallacy of those who consider war a 
necessary attribute in the organisation of human 
society is based upon a fundamental misconcep- 
tion of fact in historj" concerning the action of 
States towards one another, as well as the social 

167 



development of the individuals within each State. 
Those who are thus misled point to the past and 
ask the question ; whether there ever was a period 
in man's past when there was no war? Their 
views would apparently receive some support as 
regards progress in the moral development of po- 
litical units throughout history when we realize 
the sudden relapse into barbarism and savagery 
in our own days and at this comparatively ad- 
vanced stage of development in civilisation. But 
this astounding modern phenomenon in the his- 
tory of mankind is to a great extent to be ac- 
counted for by the prevalent inadequacy of the 
very conception of what a State is; while, on the 
other hand, when history is no longer considered 
by a few centuries in the development of man and 
human society, it certainly goes to belie the claim 
to immutability as regards war as a fixed and es- 
sential institution in the social evolution of man. 

If we turn back to pre-historic times, we shall 
find that this fighting instinct of man dominated, 
not only individual life at a time when it formed 
a necessary impulse to self-preservation, but also 
dominated the communal existence of each period, 
the family, the clan or tribe, or race, or nation. 
Fighting and war were constantly present in the 
minds and in the life of the peoples of bygone 
ages. It was the ruling-factor directing, their 
earliest education for which man prepared him- 
self in every stage, and the skill and superiority 
he attained in it formed the chief basis of all so- 
cial distinction and moral praise, and, even, 
through the further effect upon sexual selection, 
directed and modified the survival of the fittest 
and the character of races as they advanced in the 
course of time. The direct act of mere physical 

168 



fighting was ever present to the conscious and the 
subconscious habitual life of bygone peoples. In 
the earliest stages of man's history it would have 
been quite impossible to convince men or com- 
munities that they were not to look upon this im- 
mediate neighbor or the people living but a few 
miles distant, as enemies, whom at any time it 
might be their duty to subdue by physical force ; 
that their possession would be secured even for 
generations to come; that justice in their claims 
to possession would be enforced without physical 
intervention, hundreds of miles away, nay, beyond 
the seas, among people and races whom they 
might never see and whose existence and whose 
institutions were completely foreign to them. 
Imagine the effect upon a man living — we will not 
say in the palaeolithic, but in the neolithic age, 
nay, even upon the inhabitants of Central Europe 
for some centuries in the Middle Ages — if you 
were to tell him, that he could assert and mani- 
tain his rights and secure his life and independ- 
ence in every aspect of his life, from the lowest 
phases up to his power of selecting his own rulers, 
and that these claims would be based upon the 
principles of reasoned justice for which all beings 
crave from the moment they become sentient and 
intelligent! Surely, had it been possible to de- 
scribe such a state of things to our earlier ances- 
tors, they would not only have considered us Uto- 
pians and dreamers, but deliberate liars. At all 
events, they wotild have met us, had they been 
given to generalisation, with the dogmatic state- 
ment, that it was ' contrary to human nature ' thus 
to be subdued by general law ; and, on the narrow 
analogy of their own immediate and lower experi- 
ence in which such radical change would appear to 

169 



be impossible, they would have asserted the abso- 
lute impossibility of transferring such conditions 
to wider and yet higher spheres. The step from 
some conditions prevailing even a century or two 
ago, when witches were still burnt and their ex- 
istence was vouched for by the mass of credulous 
people, to those ruling our present life to such a 
degree, that we cannot conceive of their not hav- 
ing existed before us is, I maintain, much greater 
than from the international warlike attitude of the 
present day to the day when war between nations 
is inconceivable. 

To give but one further instance of the unfound- 
edness of such negative prediction with regard to 
future developments of human society, based 
upon the narrow experience of lower conditions 
of life prevailing at the time, we need but turn 
to the consideration of one social institution which 
dominated the life of the highest class of human 
beings in civilised countries but a short time ago 
and which, strangely enough (though upon ex- 
amination we sliall find that it is not so strange) 
still survives in Germany. This is the duel. 
Three generations ago, the duel was still the cus- 
tomary means of righting wrongs among a certain 
section of society in England. It has entirely van- 
ished from our lives. Not only our children, but 
we ourselves of the present generation, can no 
more think of it as a means of redress for wrongs 
done to us than we would turn to augury for di- 
rection in battle, or to the 'Judgment by God' 
to maintain the justice of our individual claims. 
Had you asked any gentleman a hundred years 
ago, whether he could dispense with the duel, he 
would have said: 'Certainly not; it is essential 
to human nature to fight, and it is still more es- 

170 



sential for a man of honour to stand up for his 
rights in certain contingencies at the risk of his 
life to punish the aggressor and to defend his 
honour.' This same view prevails today among 
some of the most highly intelligent, honourable 
and distinguished people in Germany. More than 
once I have had certain Germans, whom I hold in 
the highest esteem and in whose intelligence and 
sense of justice in all other respects I have the 
greatest faith — I have had such men ask me: 
''How can you get on in England without the 
duel? It is impossible to do so." In spite of all 
the reasons one could give, they considered our 
attitude to be almost 'against nature,' certainly 
against higher nature. But we can well under- 
stand, in the light of what we now know, why a 
Bernhardi should uphold this effete and absurd 
institution, even why a Bismarck and (as I have 
heard him do on the authority of the great states- 
man) a Treitschke, should have praised the gro- 
tesque survival of the attenuated form of duel- 
ling practiced by German students, as a most bene- 
ficent influence in the development of their social 
life and character. One can understand why the 
Kaiser and his immediate military advisers 
should uphold it, and why the judiciary bench 
should have committed such a legal crime in deal- 
ing with the Zabeni affair. But surely when the 
definite example is before their eyes of other civ- 
ilised nations like the English and the Americans, 
emerging from this lower and more barbarous 
survival of earlier days and dearly demons Crat- 
ing that, in spite of the fighting instinct in man, 
the duel is entirely expunged from the records of 
our civilised life, it can then no longer be main- 



171 



tained that tlie duel is an essential necessary in- 
stitution which will maintain itself for all times. 

Now, the same applies, a fortiori, to war be- 
tween States. For the quarrels and the fighting 
between individuals, and the causes which lead to 
them, are so frequent and imminent in the diversi- 
fied conditions of human intercourse that they 
must constantly occur, however readily they may 
be suppressed by the hand of justice. And when 
we consider the variation in personal impetuosity 
and passion among millions of men and women 
living together, we can understand how the vio- 
lence of passion and the haste of action may con- 
stantly produce transgTession of the law, even 
crime in its most destructive forms. But remem- 
ber: large bodies move slowly. In spite of the 
''psychology of the 'crowd' " and the difficulty of 
calming or subduing the collective passion of a 
moving mass when once it begins its onward rush, 
the action of States — especially those blessed with 
representative government — must be compara- 
tively slow and deliberate and give time for re- 
flection and for the consideration of the claims of 
justice. A man, even the most self -controlled and 
temperate, may strike a quick blow in a fit of 
passion; a State cannot go to war without fore- 
thought and deliberate preparation. At all 
events, the possibility of such an outburst which 
may in the end become most passionate, is not 
conceivable in the case of a modern State, and 
therefore justice in the case of international dif- 
ferences and contests can always prevent: while 
in the individual life within the State it can only 
menace by general enactments, or punish after the 
crime has already been committed. It is thus 
more possible — not less — in the relation between 

172 



states, to counteract and check the instinct for 
fighting and the antagonism to law and justice, 
than it is in the case of individuals. The only re- 
maining difference is that in the one case there 
is the constraining power behind the law, and in 
the other it does not yet exist. 



J 73 



CHAPTER XI 

The Cuke of the Diseases of War 

It thus remains for us — and the end of this ter- 
rible war will mark the initiation — to add the ele- 
ment of might to that of right, and thus to wipe 
war among civilised nations from off the face of 
the world for all times. What Kant and so many 
philosophers dreamt of will, nay, must, in the ne- 
cessity of events, now become a reality. We must 
add to the Hague Tribunal the power of enforc- 
ing its enactments and of policing international 
relations. 

It has been admitted on all sides — in fact it has 
almost become a common-place to say — that some- 
thing must be done in the future to assert the col- 
lective will of civilised humanity in order to con- 
vert the arbitrament of war into the arbitrament 
of justice. It has been urged by experienced 
statesmen, practical and at the same time thought- 
ful and high-minded, that there must be some form 
of federation of at least the European States, or 
of the civilised States of the world, asserting the 
unity of interests and the unity of ideals which 
they all have in common, and thus to provide for 
a tangible safeguard of peace. I venture to doubt 
whether such a federation by itself would prove 
practically efficacious. The evil traditions of in- 
ternational diplomacy are so strongly established 
that, reform them as you may, the separate inter- 
ests dominating each one of the States, and within 
each State powerful bodies, whether political, 

174 



commercial or financial, would all make for the 
Undoing of this spirit of unity. The avowed or 
implied, the secret or public, formation of groups 
of alliances or ententes, corresponding to the 
community of certain interests (themselves tem- 
porary and changeable), the affinities of race and 
religions, and many other disintegrating causes, 
will make themselves felt and affect the solidarity 
of such a federation. A closer federation in some 
form may come, and it will come in the course of 
evolution, when once the menace of war is re- 
moved, and will then be more firmly based on 
the actual growth of the lasting factors which 
make for humanitarian harmony. 

But the first and supreme necessity is to add, 
in the most direct and effective form, the element 
of might to that of right, the power of constrain- 
ing the world to bow to the judicial enactments of 
an international court. Then, and only then, will 
there be practical efficiency : and this practical ad- 
vance towards an ideal end will be strengthened 
by the fact that it conforms to the material inter- 
ests and requirements, to the economy of public 
treasure, for each State. The economic princi- 
ples of co-operation, of division of labor, organi- 
sation and concentration of energy and resources, 
has been dominant in modern commerce and in- 
dustry mainly for the good and sometimes for 
the bad. But it certainly commends itself to the 
intelligence and the interests of the modern world. 
Disarmament, or partial disarmament, is called 
for by the workers all over the world. 

The burden of taxation which armaments imply 
had already become intolerable and in itself led 
to effective opposition in every one of the States — 
apart from all the other evil consequences of its 

175 . 



effects which have so frequently been pointed out 
and have been so fully realised of late. 

The history of the Prussian Army since the 
days of Frederick the Great and Napoleon have 
shown how easily any injunction regulating the 
sizes of armies and navies can be evaded. Nor 
can it be an advantage to encourage interference 
with the internal affairs of any State and thus to 
jeopardise its independence. 

It will be more effective, as well as more eco- 
nomical, and in conformity with the spirit of our 
age, to create international armies and arma- 
ments, towards which each State pro rata contrib- 
utes its portion, which will be so much more pow- 
erful than those of any one State or group of 
States, that they can enforce the enactments of an 
international court beyond all doubt or cavil. The 
international unity within national freedom and 
independence — nay, safe guarding and strength- 
ening the independence of each State — must find 
direct and forcible expression in the establishment 
of an international court backed by an internat- 
ional army and navy which are placed entirely 
under its control. 

I may be allowed to quote what on this point I 
published in 1899 (The Expansion of Western 
Ideals etc. p. 105) in a sketch of how this federa- 
tion of civilised States might be realised in the 
institution of one central international tribunal 
with a corresponding power to enforce its decis- 
ions: 

"It is thus that the expansion of Western ideals 
will ultimately tend towards the supreme goal of 
the World's Peace ; and I maintain in all sincerity 
of conviction, that it is through the introduction 
of the United States into this great expanding 

176 



movement, and through, as a first step, the realis- 
ation of the English-speaking Brotherhood, that 
this ultimate goal is most likely to be attained. 

"When, within the last decade, colonial expan- 
sion more and more asserted itself as the domin- 
ant motive po-wer in the policy of European na- 
tions, the lovers of progress and peace were struck 
with horror at the appearance of this new Levia- 
than, this great enemy of humanity, that threat- 
ened to furnish a continuance of causes for inter- 
necine warfare after the dynastic rivalries had 
died away, and when the racial and territorial dif- 
ferences seemed to be gradually losing their vir- 
ulent energy in Europe, It looked as if we were 
entering into a chaotic period of Universal Grab, 
in whicih each nation would rush in to seize all the 
spoils it could carry, and would frequently have to 
drop them in order to fight its equally voracious 
neighbour. This gloomy view has been completely 
dispelled for the prospect of a real English-speak- 
ing Brotherhood. For, as regards colonial expan- 
sion, I can see the English-speaking conception of 
colonisation is clear opposition, in the domain of 
material interests as well as in that of ideas and 
ideals, to that of the Continental European Pow- 
ers. And this common ground of thought, feeling 
and action will of necessity tend to bind the Eng- 
lish-speaking peoples together. Through it I look 
forward to much more than an Anglo-Saxon Al- 
liance. I can see the day when there will be a 
great confederation of the independent and self- 
governing English-speaking nations, made clearly 
recognisable and effective to the outer world by 
some new form of international corporation, which 
statesmen and jurists will be able to devise when 
the necessity oiP things calls for it. For, day by 
day, this union of the English-speaking peoples is 
becoming more of an accomplished fact in the so- 
cial and economical life of the people themselves. 

177 



Consider the strengtli of such a confederation! 
Who will say nay to it? And the stronger it is, 
the better for the peace of the world ; it will insure 
this more effectually than any number of Peace 
Congresses convoked by the mightiest of mon- 
archs. 

' ' Step by step this power will advance, binding 
the nations together, not severing them. For it 
will be based upon ideas which unite, and not upon 
race which severs. And all those who share these 
ideas are ipso facto a part of this union; Ger- 
many, which stands before the world as a great 
leader of human intelligence will be with us. 
France, which overthrew mediaeval feudalism and 
first raised the torch of freedom, will be with us 
in spite of the tragic crisis through which it is at 
present passing, when vicious reaction is contend- 
ing with delirious anarchy ; — for it must never be 
forgotten that the France of today produced the 
Picquarts, Zolas, and many other heroes who 
fought for the sanctity of justice. Thousands of 
Eussians, their numbers constantly swelling, will 
be with us in spirit, and the spirit will force its 
essence into inert matter; these leaders will edu- 
cate the people mi til they will modify (let us hope 
gradually) the spirit of their own government. 

**Then we shall be prepared to make an end of 
war ; because behind the great humanitarian idea 
there will be the powder to safe-guard these ideas. 
'No right without might' is a cjTiical aphorism of 
which history has proved the truth. To be effec- 
tive, the law must have behind it the power to en- 
force its decisions. It is so in national law, and 
it will be so in international law. 

*'Let us allow our 'dream' to materialise still 
further. I can see this great Confederacy of the 
future established permanently with its local hab- 
itation, let us say on one of the islands — the 
Azores, Bermuda, the Canaries, Madeira. And 

178 



here will be sitting the great* Court of Arbitration, 
composed of most eminent men from all the na- 
tions in the Confederacy. Here will be assembled, 
always ready to carry into effect the laws enacted, 
an international army, and an international fleet — 
the police of the world's highways. No recalcit- 
rant nation (then, and only then, will the nations 
be able to disarm) could venture to oppose its will 
to that of this supreme representative of justice. 
Perhaps this court may develop into a court oi 
appeals, dealing not only with matters of state. 
The function of this capital to the great Confed- 
eracy will not only concern war, but peace as well. 
There will be established here 'Bureaux' repre- 
senting the interests which all the nations have in 
common. As regards commerce and industry, they 
will distribute throughout the world important in- 
formation concerning the supply and demand of 
the world's markets, and counteracting to some 
extent the clumsy economical chaos which now 
causes so much distress throughout the world. 
Science and art, which are ever the most effective 
bonds between civilised peoples, will there find 
their international habitation, and here will be es- 
tablished the great international unversities, and 
libraries, and museums. There will be annual ex- 
hibitions of works of art and industry, so that 
the nations, comparatively so ignorant of each 
other 's work now, should learn fully to appreciate 
each other. And at greater intervals there will be 
greater exhibitions and international meetings, 
the modern form of the Olympic games. The Am- 
phyctionic Council of Delphi, as well as the Olym- 
pic Games of the small Greek communities, will 
find their natural and unromantic revival m tins 
centre of civilisation, this tangible culminating 
point of Western Ideals. Thus will the World's 
Peace be insured, the nations be brought together, 
and the ancient inherited prejudices and hatreds 
be stamped out from the face of the earth. ' ' 

179 



The great Amphyctionic Council, into whose 
hands all the civilised States will, by mutual con- 
sent, place the power to enforce its enactments, 
will consist of the supreme judges delegated by 
each State. It may at once be questioned whether 
these international delegates are to be appointed 
for life, or for a definite term : by whom they are 
to be appointed ; and in what proportion they are 
to represent the several States? 

1. As to the duration of their office, it appears 
to me advisable that the first appointment be 
made for a definite period ; but that after this test 
they should receive the security of tenure and the 
consequent status, prestige and independence 
which accompany a life position. Of course there 
would be definite grounds, of incompetence or dis- 
honesty, on which they could be removed from of- 
fice. 

2. It might prove most practical that the first 
appointment as a privilege and a grave respon- 
sibility, be vested in the head of each State, and 
that it should clearly be understood that, by per- 
sonal capacity, by training, and by achievement, 
by prominence in the State, and by integrity of 
character, the appointee be the highest represen- 
tative whom each head of State can select for 
such an office. In any case, it would always be 
desirable that he should not be tainted from the 
outset by party politics and be merely the repre- 
sentative of the government which happens at the 
time to be in power in each State. In fact one 
supreme qualification should be that the adminis- 
tration of justice in its highest conception should 
be the ruling function of one thus chosen to rep- 
resent each nation on this highest tribunal, and 
that he distinctly does not hold the mandate to 

180 



act as council for each separate State in asserting 
and pushing the interests of that State irrespec- 
tive of general justice. It therefore becomes de- 
sirable that the body of these international judges 
itself should, as a body, have some power in the 
selection of the individual judge. Though it 
would not be practical to put into their hands the 
initial selection in each country, there ought to be 
given to the body as a whole the power to deter- 
mine whether the appointee is persona grata or 
not, a practice such as is now followed as regards 
acceptance of a foreign diplomatic representative 
by a State. Whatever method of appointment in 
each country, and the admission into the body as 
a whole, may be adopted, at all times the fact 
ought to be impressed, that the national repre- 
sentative on this body is to be truly representa- 
tive of the highest character and standing in the 
eyes of the nation from which he comes, and of 
the world at large. 

3. It would, furthermore, have to be decided in 
what proportion the several States are to be rep- 
resented. Great care will have to be taken — es- 
pecially in the light of our most recent experi- 
ences — that the smaller states be duly represen- 
ted and their interests be not entirely submerged 
into those of the greater states and empires. 
Still, unless good reasons can be urged to the con- 
trary, it would probably be most practical and 
just, that the representatives be chosen in pro- 
portion to the number of inhabitants of each 
country. For, after all, in the ultimate concep- 
tion of such an International Court it would be 
humanity at large which is represented and each 
man in every one of the several States could thus 
claim a share of representation. 

181 



In the suggestion wliich I published some years 
ago for such an international organization, and 
wliich I have reproduced above, I enumerated for 
the local habitation of this International Court 
several Islands. Of course it is desirable that 
topographically the neutrality and international 
character of such a habitation and centre of jur- 
isdiction and power should be duly regarded and 
accentuated. From this point of view it would be 
desirable that, out of consideration for the Amer- 
ican Continent, this abode should not be too near 
to Europe, or so near that it, as it were, forms a 
dependency of any one State or group of States. 
Still, considering the facilities of intercommunica- 
tion, constantly increasing, and the fact that the 
sea no longer separates but even unites, this con- 
sideration need not weigh too heavily. Moreover, 
other attributes may be of still greater impor- 
tance. These are the suitability of any one site 
to respond to the full and varied life in every as- 
pect of its expression, and the dignity and impor- 
tance and high scale of living to which it ought to 
attain. To this must be added tlie strategic ef- 
ficiency of such a centre for purposes of defen- 
sive and offensive power to carry out the enact- 
ments of the Court. There would, of course, be 
subsidiary military and naval stations distributed 
all over the globe and under the immediate con- 
trol of the Central Tribunal, so that, in every part 
of the world, the decision could without loss of 
time be effectively enforced. It might not be nec- 
essary even to choose an island though large and 
well fortified harbours for the fleet would be an 
indispensable condition in the choice. Among the 
islands, however, it might be suggested that, un- 
less for the reason stated above the United States 

182 



might object, one of the larger Channel Islands or 
the whole group of them might prove most op- 
propriate. To recommend them still further : the 
admirable temperate climate and the natural 
beauties which they contain could be a great rec- 
ommendation in their favor. 

Of supreme importance for the main purposes 
of such an International Court Avould be the 
army and navy', always at the beck and call of this 
Court, and ever ready to coerce or to strike in 
support of the maintenance of International Law, 
Such an army and such a navy, international in 
character, to which each State would contribute 
pro rata, would of course, have to be stronger by 
far than any one of the armies which by mutual 
■consent each State would be authorized to main- 
tain to uphold within its o\vai country internal or- 
der — stronger even than any combination of sev- 
eral of these States. It would of course include 
military and naval air-craft and would constantly 
be kept in the highest state of efficiency. At any 
moment this great power could be hurled at any 
delinquent state to crush the culprit. Even if it 
were conceivable that the recalcitrant State or 
States would muster their forces in opposition to 
its authority, it is hardly conceivable that, with 
the co-operation of all the States siding wdth this 
central authority, any one State or group of 
States could long withstand. But as a matter of 
fact, when once duly established in reality, and 
when continuous practice and authority had in the 
course of years impressed this upon all civilised 
nations so that its existence and traditions formed 
part of the consciousness of all the peoples 
throughout the civilised world, opposition to such 
a Court would be even much more unlikely than 

183 



an occasional revolt of individuals or bodies 
against the police or law within a well regulated 
State. As I have urged before, one of the strong- 
est arguments in favour of such an international 
organisation, which will and must carry weight 
Vvdth every nation throughout the civilised world, 
is not based upon abstract justice or reason and 
the revolt against the senseless slaughter of hu- 
man beings (which all right-minded people are 
now feeling) : but upon the fact that armaments, 
as they now exist and which have been supposed 
to be the means of keeping the peace, and the only 
means of avoiding the lawlessness of man left to 
his fighting instincts, are sapping the resources of 
every State and casting unbearable burdens upon 
the laborers and producers of national wealth. 
The cost to each individual nation for its con- 
tribution to these international armaments will be 
infinitesimal compared to that now weighing upon 
each separate State, and will be easily borne by 
each one of them. It is nothing more than the 
simple application of co-operation and economy 
of power which has been ruling and is ruling the 
development of modern commerce and industry. 
I may leave it to the imagination of every 
reader to build up for himself the wonderful dis- 
play of civilised life which such an international 
centre will create for the world, such as in a few 
words I have endeavoured slightly to indicate in 
the passage quoted above. The beneficent activ- 
ity of such an international centre in directions 
other than those of immediate legislation and of 
the protection of international right and law, will 
readily be realised. The genius of ancient Ath- 
ens, though no doubt primarily Greek (and this 
ancient Greece of those days already includes the 

184 



conflux of many different civilisations), in the 
hey-day of Athenian culture, was to a great ex- 
tent due to the fact that the various people — work- 
men, artisans, artists, philosophers — flocked there 
from Asia Minor and other parts of the ancient 
world, and contributed their share of new creative 
impulse and of vigorous co-operation in the cause 
of art and culture to the making of the Periclean 
Age. The common habitation would lead to the 
facile intercourse of representatives from every 
nationality; the consequent attraction of visitors, 
from all parts of the world who would feel that 
this was no strange country, but that they shared 
in its common life, would not only counteract nar- 
rowness and provincialism of feeling and thought, 
but would actively stimulate a widening and in- 
tensified advance in the direction of human sym- 
pathy, culture and brotherhood. It would, and 
ought to, become the supreme home and centre for 
all intellectual life, as there would be created here 
a clearing-house for all higher endeavour, centered 
in vast buildings and institutions representing the 
best and the most beautiful that modern civilisa- 
tion caagproduce. The final and less immediate 
outcome^of the activities emanating in every di- 
rection of human life from this common center is 
so stupendous and far-reaching, that the imagi- 
nation staggers in the beatitude of vision rising 
before our eyes. And it is not only in the great 
and manifest actions of international and common 
life, but even in every one of the smallest byways 
of human activities and human interests that 
these influences would realise themselves actually 
and practically, not merely in the world of 
dreams. 
I fully realise that there is one great stumbling 

185 



block to this advance in civilisation and the reali- 
sation of such unity of international effort and 
power. This is to be found in the question of lan- 
guage. It is typified by the Tower of Babel. The 
ancient Hebrews were led by a correct instinct 
when they attempted to erect such a tower. But 
w^e all know that they failed in this endeavour. 
Languages will always unite or separate, and dif- 
ference of language may prevent complete un- 
derstanding between the peoples. In so far it 
will prevent complete international understand- 
ing and international fusion. On the other hand, 
as I insisted upon the desirability of developing 
and maintaining individuality throughout the na- 
tions — which of itself would in no way suffer from 
wider federation — so I do not think that it would 
in any w^ay be desirable to check the expression 
of national individuality bj' obliterating national 
language. Still less could it be ever contemplated 
to deprive ourselves of the treasures of human 
thought and art which have taken actual form in 
the national literature of each people. But we 
cannot doubt that the need of one common lan- 
guage for all civilised peoples remains. Even the 
Hague Convention has been enabled to do its work 
in spite of the great divergence in the languages 
of its representatives. More and more as time 
goes on, and the more real the need and the feel- 
ing for a great international confederation be- 
comes, until finally we. attain to its realisation in 
such an International Court endowed with the 
power to coerce all nations into conformity with 
its supreme dictates, the necessity for one com- 
mon language, co-existing with all other national 
languages will make itself felt. Whether this will 
lead to the establishment of such a language as 

186 



Volapuq or Esperanto, whether it will be natur- 
ally developed by the action of physical and men- 
tal conditions within the civilised world by a slow 
process of evolution, or whether any one existing 
modern language will for one reason or the other, 
assert its predominance and become established as 
this language of international intercourse; the 
fact of its undeniable need will make itself felt 
more and more as time goes on. The French 
language has for a long time been adopted as the 
language of diplomacy; but there exists consid- 
erable opposition to its universal use. 

The Middle Ages, or rather the beginnings of 
the Renaissance, prove the value and the efficiency 
of such a dominating language. In this case it 
was the property of the lettered or learned, or of 
the superior classes, beginning wdth the clerks 
who held in their hand the all-powerful factor in 
life, namely, the education of the young. More- 
over, they had, as a substratum of such internat- 
ional unity the organisation of the Catholic 
Church spread over the whole civilised world. 
Beginning with the Church and its priests, how- 
ever, the knowledge of this common language ex- 
tended to a considerable degree among the ruling 
classes. The result was — to take but one type of 
most definite and direct influence on the national 
mind throughout the whole world by one man or 
a group of men, the bearers of great thought — the 
result was, that Erasmus could travel, converse 
and lecture throughout the whole of Europe, oc- 
cupy a chair in the University of Cambridge, in- 
fluence the leaders of thought, at one with him in 
his great endeavour of world reform (not only, or 
chiefly, reform of sectarian religion) ; in his na- 
tive Holland, in Germany, in Switzerland, and in 

187 



Italy, directly affecting by his thought and his 
teaching people of every class in all these coun- 
tries, and finally fixing and perpetuating this in- 
fluence in laying down in his books what he had 
to say in a language intelligible to the readers of 
all nations. He and the Oxford reformers real- 
ised this international power and cherished in- 
ternational aims not very distant from those 
which we cherish at this moment. He and his fel- 
low militants also realised fully the power for 
good which was vested in a church that was 
catholic — i. e., universal, international, human. 
But his chief object was to use it for the human- 
ising of humanity, not the vicious confirmation of 
separatism, nationalistic or sectarian, in religion. 
The supreme aim of these great men was to hu- 
manise and to educate the clerks who were the 
teachers of the rising generations and, through 
them, ultimately to raise mankind higher. So 
clear and strong was the faith of these men in this 
final mission, that Moore really sacrificed his life^ 
because he was opposed to nationalism, to Chau- 
vinism which threatened to rob humanism of its 
catholic and universal effectiveness, to dehuman- 
ise the spirit of refining love in mankind and to 
give full sway to the spread of national and local 
hatred, ending, as it did, in endless wars through- 
out the world. 

Erasmus and his followers possessed the one 
great strength of a common international lan- 
guage, which, though it was not destined to help 
them directly and completely to realise their great 
and beneficent aims, did undoubtedly contribute 
to what may perhaps be the greatest advance in 
civilisation which the world has yet seen since 
the days of ancient Hellas. 

188 



It is quite impracticable and utterly unrealis- 
able to restore the Latin language to life, and, af- 
ter spreading it throughout the whole world in 
the education of the young, to leave it in the 
course of actual evolution to widen out and 
modify itself in this process of life, so that it 
should adapt itself to all the needs of modern in- 
tercourse and thus contribute a most powerful 
element to the realisation of our final ideals? 

It cannot be a disadvantage that it was the 
bearer of great ideas throughout the Middle Ages, 
the whole of the Christian civilisation ; that it was 
the linguistic expression of the widest diffusion of 
civilisation through the greatest organised instru- 
ment of civilisation, namely, the Roman Empire. 
Nor even can it be a disadvantage that it should, 
to a certain degree, contain and reflect in itself — 
sometimes only the shadow instead of the reality 
— the highest spirit of Hellenism. I will be per- 
sonal and confess that I should have preferred 
Greek to Latin, because I deem those elements of 
higher civilisation embodied in the term Hellen- 
ism more important for humanity that is to be 
found in any other language. But a moment's 
thought will tell us that practically this would 
be impossible. The mere fact of such a differ- 
ence of alphabet between Greek and Latin would 
be of the greatest practical effect as regards the 
comparative facilities of introducing either. But 
the Latin alphabet and the Latin script have pene- 
trated throughout the whole of the civilised world 
and must be acquired by every schoolboy and 
schoolgirl to whatever nation they may belong. 
It was not merely pedantry or theatrical roman- 
ticism which led Bismarck to attempt to drive 
out the Latin alphabet from writing and print- 

189 



ing — as far as he was able to do so — in Germany, 
and to restore Gothic characters. It was not 
merely meant to be an aid internally to consoli- 
date Germanenthum: but it was already a direct 
anticipation of the dreams of the present Allde- 
utsche party, to force Pan-Germanism upon the 
whole civilised world: first, by blood and iron; 
then by gold and commercial concessions and pro- 
motions ; and finally by the forcible supremacy of 
the German Kidtur which even a Nietzsche con- 
sidered inferior to that of the Latin races. In 
spite of his efforts, no German who can read and 
write is unacquainted with Latin s<?ript. Surely 
we need not construct a modern language in our 
study when for countless ages and in the present 
day the ancient Latin language, never for one 
moment dead in European history, is still with 
us, and though asleep still lives and can readily 
be aroused from its slumbers and assist in the 
great and peaceful battle which will lead to the 
final victory of civilised humanity. 



190 



PART II. The Inadequacy of Modern Morals 

Nietzsche 

CHAPTER I 

All that I have written hitherto to define the 
conditions now prevailing in civilised life which 
have led to this disastrous war has confined what 
I have said at the beginning in the Introduction 
(pp. 11-14) : that we have to go deeper down to 
find the essential and underlying causes. For the 
one great fact must have impressed itself 
through all the phases and aspects of the enquiry 
as we have hitherto pursued it — namely, that 
there is a hiatus, if not a direct contradiction, be- 
tween our faith and professions and our actions, 
which did not exist in former ages to the same 
degree; that civilised humanity is at sea regard- 
ing its most important ideas and ideals ; and that 
we are no longer possessed of efficient Faith, the 
Faith which inspired the Crusaders in the past 
or the Madhists in modern times. Yet, we all of 
us, the representatives of Western civilisation, 
manifest this conflict and contradiction between 
our ultimate beliefs and our direct course of ac- 
tion. Nor is the fault merely or mainly to be 
sought for in our actions and in our inability to 
live up to the principles on the part of the best 
and the most thoughtful among us; but it lies 
chiefly in the fact that our ideals are no longer 
believed in, that they are not our actual ideals. 

When we consider the writings or the intellec- 
tual achievements of philosophers, social reform- 

191 



ers and artists, who have either had the greatest 
influence in the fashioning of the intellectual tem- 
per of our age, or are at least most indicative of 
its peculiar trend, we find that their main strength 
and their main influence lie in a negative direc- 
tion, namely, in the revolt against the dominance 
of our rules, canons, and philosophies of lies, 
which no longer fit the needs of the modern world 
and no longer respond to our actual convictions 
of what is truest and best. 

There can be no doubt that the social reform- 
ers, the great writers and thinkers on philosophy, 
politics and social questions in the second half of 
the nineteenth century down to our own days, 
have in the main not been constructive, but criti- 
cal and negative. The nineteenth century and our 
own days will be noted in history, not so much for 
their positive achievement in world-reform, not 
for the solution of questions and problems, as for 
the putting and formulation of these questions 
and problems.^ It corresponds very much in this 
respect to the eighteenth century in France and 
elsewhere, in which the "encyclopaedists," po- 
litical philosophers and educational reformers of 
the type of Rousseau formulated the main ques- 
tions by means of their criti-eism of the ancient 
regime, the positive answers themselves being 
given by the French and American Revolutions 
at the end of that century. 

This criticism of the fundamental standards 
and ideals governing modern life, culminating in 
the definite putting of the question to which the 
future is to give an adequate reply, does not only 
concern the economic aspect of modern life, the 



(1) See Article in New York Times, 1910, "The World's 
Changes in the last Fifty Years." 

192 



distribution of wealth and the freedom of assert- 
ing the right to physical existence on the part of 
individuals; it is not only represented by the 
writings and the direct influence of Lasalle and 
Carl Marx and of the theorists and publicists of 
modern economical schools forming the theoreti- 
cal basis for socialist and even anarchist agita- 
tion ; it is not only manifested in the powerful im- 
peachment of commercialism and capitalism 
which tyrannise over the inner economic life of 
each nation and community and which extend 
their dominating influences over all international 
relations; but it clearly shows itself in the main 
character and direction of thought in the writers 
and historians on philosophy, on ethics individual 
and social, in the direct preachings of historians 
and social reformers — nay, even in the spirit of 
the work of great artists and in the theories of 
writers on art. 

The one point which all these leaders and fash- 
ioners of modern thought have in common, how- 
ever divergent their positive and more definite 
views may be, is a protest against the existing or- 
der of things, the more or less conscious feeling 
and conviction that the fundamental and guiding 
principles of our life are not truly expressive of 
the needs of modern man, of the best that he can 
feel, and think, and do. They thus vary in the 
directness and truthfulness, and even the blunt- 
ness, with which they attack the traditions and 
conventions which the modern world retains and 
accepts from the past and to which, in conformity 
with the laws of a well regulated society, moral, or 
at least decent and respectable, members bow in 
slavish obedience. From August Comte, (who 
boldly ventures far beyond into the constructive 

193 



realm of a positive philosophy which endeavours 
to supply a system to replace what his criticism 
destroys), through Schopenhauer and von Hart- 
mann to Wagner, Ibsen and Nietzsche, and to Tol- 
stoy (who is the complete antithesis to 
Nietzsche), and also to Maeterlink, we have the 
same protest as regards the recognition of the 
inadequacy of our ideals, our faith and religion 
as bearing upon the social ethics of the modern 
•sivilised world. These writers and artists differ 
only as regards the characteristics and personal 
divergence in the intensity Avith which they op- 
pose the existing order of things according to the 
intellectual atmosphere of their professed style 
of work or the artistic temperament of their per- 
sonalities. In a more attenuated, though none 
the less powerful and effective, form, the same 
spirit and ethos are manifested in England in the 
writings of Herbert Spencer and Mill, of Carlyle 
and Ruskin and Morris, of George Eliot, and even 
of Matthew Arnold ; while the stupendous achieve- 
ments in the natural sciences, notably in the es- 
tablishment of the Darwinian theory, immediately 
incited their application to moral and social prob- 
lems by such brilliant exponents as Huxley and 
W. K. Clifford, finding a powerful echo in Ger- 
many in the writings of Heckel. At the same 
time, the continuous attacks of the numerous writ- 
ers directly opposing religious orthodoxy 
throughout the last century, beginning with 
Strauss and Renan, received the most powerful, 
though involuntarj^, support from the growth of 
scholarly historical criticism, sharpened and 
strengthened by all the methods of modern scien- 
tific enquiry, within the theological camp itself — 
nay, within the very strongholds of sects and 

194 



cliurches; until we find that the Roman Catholic 
Church itself is aroused to the full exertion of all 
its energy and power to quell the modernist move- 
ment within its own body. Whatever divergence 
may exist among these great men, their mentali- 
ties and their -writings, the main fact stands out 
clearly and irrefutably: that the existing order 
of things is recognised as inadequate and must 
be reformed and adapted to the new order of the 
world. Where these pioneers or iconoclasts dif- 
fer is in the degree in which they consciously mani- 
fest this opposition and in the boldness of their 
attack upon the traditions hitherto recognised as 
indispensible to the maintenance of civilised so- 
ciety and morality. The attention which they 
arouse and the eifect which they produce are, 
from the nature of great movements in man 's his- 
tory (alas that it should be so) ! dependent upon 
the boldness — nay, the exaggeration — with which 
they thus attack the common traditions in which 
man lives at the time. Luther will always have 
a more immediate and powerful influence than 
Erasmus ; though the confirmed optimist may con- 
sole himself with the fact that ttltwiatelj/ — though 
it may be a long time — Erasmus will prevail ; and 
though it may even be shown that Luther's influ- 
ence would not have been what it was, unless he 
had absorbed some of the best that was in Eras- 
mus. Thus it is that of all these writers and 
thinkers there may for the time being have had 
the greatest influence, at all events in Germany, 
namely, Ibsen, the Dane, Wagner and Nietzsche; 
while Schopenhauer and von Hartmann are their 
immediate precursors. 

Though Ibsen is concerned with many other 
aspects of modern life, in which he wishes to stib- 

195 



stitute for the dead and utterly inadequate tra- 
ditions, the living and hopeful freedom of man's 
natural instincts and justified desires to self reali- 
sation, it is chiefly concerning the relation between 
the sexes that his dramatic writings have exerted 
the greatest influence upon modem society. The 
same applies to Wagner. Both, either by the 
ruthlessness of their attacks or by the penetrat- 
ing forcefulness of their artisti-e forms, succeeded 
in arresting the attention of the thinking world, 
nay, far beyond this world, the large mass of un- 
thinking, but strongly feeling men and women. 
Still, it was chiefly in this particular aspect of 
modern life that their criticism of existing stand- 
ards was most effective. Wagner no doubt began 
his attack on the sterile formalities of our past 
inheritance in his own narrower and immediate 
domain of art when, as a most perfect typical ren- 
dering of his own artistic struggle, he produced 
the immortal creation of Die Meistersinger in 
which his new art breaks through the fet- 
ters of a conventionalised and respectable bour- 
geois art that blocked the way. No doubt also in 
the Ring of the Nihelungen, Siegfried stands as 
the embodiment of vigorous untrammelled power 
of human life and courage, filled with truth as 
with energy, against whom, like a new Prome- 
theus, the powers of the effete gods could no; 
longer withstand in their dead and formalized 
privileges of tradition. It appears to me to be 
beyond all doubt, that, however independent may 
be the creative genius of Nietzsche, it is from 
Siegfried that he derived the inspiration for his 
Superman. And we can well understand how he 
should have turned against his great artistic in- 
spirer when the latter produced his Parsifal. For 

196 



Parzifal is a corrective afterthought, in which the 
rule of nature and of pure force in man is supple- 
mented by charity, by the spirit of altruism, so 
hateful to Nietzsche, by the spirit of service to our 
fellowmen and to mankind at large, the core and 
centre of Christian faith. Though artistically the 
theoretical embodiment of such an idea in a dra- 
matic and musical form is a failure, and marks in 
so far a downward step in the artistic achieve- 
ment of Wagner, despite the great individual 
beauties in some of the music, there can be no 
doubt that it is thus meant to be a supplement 
and corrective to his world philosophy. Except 
through the direct or indirect influence upon 
Nietzsche, Wagner's effect upon the world at 
large as a social reformer was like that of Ibsen, 
mainly concerned with the relation between man, 
and woman, and finds its highest expression, both 
philosophically and artisti-cally, in Tristun und. 
Isolde. 

But in Nietzsche we have the complete, fearless 
and logical construction of this general revolt 
against the whole fabric of the religious, moral 
and social traditions ruling the modern world. It 
is put, moreover, in a form made lyrically dra- 
matic in his own personality which is essentially 
obtruded into every phase of his theoretical ex- 
position, professedly philosophical. His writings 
primarily belong to the domain of art, to almost 
the same degree as do the works of Wagner ; and,, 
if he live at all in the future, it will chiefly be as a 
prose poet, such as, in a vastly different character 
and atmosphere, Euskin will live among the Eng^ 
lish-reading public. 

His personality, probably in real life, and un- 
doubtedly in the lyric and dramatic form in which 

197 



it manifests itself in the enunciation of his philo- 
sophic views, is, above all, filled with the desire 
for absolute truthfulness and fearlessness in the 
enunciation of truth. His aim, above all, is to 
assert independence and absolute freedom from 
prejudice, which he finds prevailing and dominat- 
ing the respectable world in which he lives. This 
truthfulness of diction takes the form of bravado, 
by the insistence upon his fearlessness, in flying 
in the face of established conventions, in shocking 
the sensibilities of his audience ; and he wishes to 
assert this fearlessness, not only to his hearers, 
but also to himself. He is thus constantly spur- 
ring himself on and insisting on correctness of his 
views and aims; not perhaps consciously, to at- 
tract the attention of his astonished readers, but 
to keep the faith in his own cause and to keep out 
the enemy of compromise and conformity, or of 
consideration for the feelings of others. He thus 
tells himself, as well as the world, how right he is 
and constantly affirms it. The difference in this 
respect between him and other writers is, that 
most authors assume they must be right or else 
they would not write at all. Others proceed im- 
personally to give their own convictions to the 
world. But Nietzsche must be personal above all 
things, and must give consistency and artistic 
unity to his ideas (though he constantly and glar- 
ingly fails in this from the very obtrusion of his 
fickle and nervous personality), by pushing his 
personality into the foreground of artistic com- 
position and making it the bearer of uncompro- 
mising truthfulness in face of the dominant pre- 
judice and conventions of the world. It therefore 
becomes, not an eccentric whim or trick, but an 
organic element in the artistic composition and 

198 



exposition of his work, that he should boldly as- 
sert and constantly repeat the fact, that he is "so 
wise," "so skilful," "That he writes such excel- 
lent books" and, in short, is "a Fatality." Still 
his assertions and statements, always to be under- 
stood as the direct emanations from his own per- 
sonality, are subject to the variations and moods 
of a personality, especially of one so highly ner- 
vous and imaginative; and his most emphatic 
statements are therefore not necessarily the tru- 
est, either to himself or to his doctrine. 

In fact his constant opposition to idealism and 
his hatred of it clash with the central idea of his 
whole human doctrine as embodied in the Super- 
man. For his Superman is distinctly and directly 
the outcome of idealism; though it be the one- 
sided idealism of a narrow and distorted kind, in 
which the process of isolation of phenomena, when 
applied to the organic world or to human nature, 
deprives man of his very organic quality in omit- 
ting or ignoring some of his essential attributes. 

He may tell us distinctly and emphatically that 
"Idealism is foreign to me";^ he may again and 
again inveigh against idealism as the arch enemy : 
but he still remains a pure idealist. Yet his is th# 
idealisation of physiological man, not moral and 
intellectual man — the ideal of the strong man de- 
void of all feeling for his fellowmen, as well as 
chivalry towards his equals and his weaker breth- 
ren. This absolutely one-sided conception of the 
human being, and the consistent idealization of 
this one side only in human nature and in human 
life, lead to the grotesque caricature of the or- 
ganic nature of human life, by depriving it of its 
essential and leading characteristics which differ- 



1 ) Ecce Homo, p. 82. 

199 



entiate man from animal. It is a misapplication 
and a misconception of Darwinian principles of 
evolution, or it is an anticipation, for in this case, 
it would have been such, of the modern principles 
of eugenics, in which only physical and physiologi- 
cal conditions are contemplated in the improve- 
ment of the individual man and of the human race. 
The Superman is thus an idealisation of man ; but 
the fundamental mistake is that it idealises only 
the forceful and physical side, and omits in his 
mental and moral constitution those essential ele- 
ments of love and spirituality, of social and intel- 
lectual altruism, which are the crowning results 
in man's evolution, leading to the advancement of 
the human race, human society, and mankind as a 
whole towards the realisation of most perfect man- 
hood, the true Superman. 

There is always this danger in forecasting the 
future of man and in directing the improvement 
of the race by the application of exact science; 
that the more complex the constituents in the 
study of nature are, (when once we enter the or- 
ganic sphere or rise still higher into that of 
science, will, intelligence, morality and idealism), 
these more complex and none the less essential at- 
tributes cannot receive their due consideration in 
our forecasts of the prospective direction of pres- 
ent life to mould the future. It is most difficult, in 
fact practically impossible to determine the 
''ideal" of each species in the animal world. But 
even when we come to comparatively so simple a 
phase of eugenistic activity as the breeding of ani- 
mals, whose sphere of utility and admitted pur- 
pose — that which Aristotle would have called 
their evreXexe'ia — are clearly manifest and 
clearly admitted, we may fail, as breeders are con- 

200 



stantly failing, in our conclusions and purpose,, 
because we do not consider the more elusive and 
uncontrollable "moral factors." The horse and 
the dog and similar animals are intelligently bred 
for purposes of strength, or fleetness, or appear- 
ance (itself essentially modified by these primary 
considerations). But, as the horse is to be used 
by us to draw vehicles, to be an agreeable or safe 
mount as a hack, or a skilful, intrepid and equally 
docile hunter, or even as a draught horse to be 
readily guided and turned by his attendant for 
a variety of uses, the temper and "moral nature," 
which are conditions of such docility and use, are 
of supreme importance in its ultimate purpose 
and in the ideal of its existence. And yet, how 
many breeders ever consider the question of pro- 
ducing the desirable "character" in the breeding 
of horses. They may go so far as occasionally to 
exclude the grossly vicious horse for purposes of 
breeding, as the useless and even destructive crim- 
inal in "equine society." Yet, when does it oc- 
cur to the breeder seriously and practically to con- 
template and consider the question of tempera- 
ment and the mixing of temperaments — of cour- 
age with docility, of rapid intelligence with stead- 
iness of control — to produce and improve the race 
of animals, the destination of which, the ideal pur- 
pose of whose existence, is so clearly defined by 
human use and so simple and recognisable in the 
limited number of such uses f When, however, we 
come to the human being — to civilised man living 
amid all the varied and complex conditions of 
modern life, of vast societies and nations, and of 
the recognisable future of humanity, to eliminate 
from the ideal type of man the moral and social 
elements which are to guide and direct his in- 

201 



sUncts, passions and health, what we call Morality 
and idealism — implies a farcically inadequate 
conception of a human being as such. 

Still, Nietzsche in this dithyrambic and rhap- 
sodical, this lyrical and dramatic exaggeration of 
his bold and wide philosophic or — as he would call 
it — "psychological," generalisation, escapes this 
manifest condemnation of elementary nonsense 
when we remember that the main purpose and 
motive, if not justification, of his whole theory of 
life is to be found in his bold and uncompromising 
protest against the inadequacy of contemporary 
moral standards. As an instance of intellectual 
courage in his own personality, (the dramatic cen- 
tre of all his writings), he puts this protest in the 
clearest and most emphatic form : ^ 

"My life-task is to prepare for humanity one 
supreme moment in which it can come to its senses, 
a Great Noon in which it will turn its gaze back- 
wards and forwards, in which it will step from 
under the yoke of accident and of priests, and for 
the first time set the question of the Why and 
Wherefore of humanity as a whole — this life-task 
naturally follows out of the conviction that man- 
kind does not get on the right road of its own ac- 
cord, that it is by no means divinely ruled, but 
rather that it is precisely under the cover of its 
most holy valuations that the instinct of negatioii, 
of corruption, and of degeneration has held such 
seductive sway. The question concerning the ori- 
gin of moral valuations is therefore a matter of 
the highest importance to me because it deter- 
mines the future of mankind. The demand made 
upon us to believe that everything is really in the 
best hands, that a certain book, the Bible, gives 
us the definite and comforting assurance that 



(1) Ecce Homo, p. 93. Translated by A. M. Ludovici and 
edited by Dr. Oscar Levy. 

202 



there is a Providence that wisely rules the fate ot 
man — when translated back into reality amounts 
simply to this, namely, the will to stifle the truth 
which maintains the reverse of all this, which is 
that hitherto man has been in the ivorst possible 
hands, and that he has been governed by the phys- 
iologically botched, the men of cunning and burn- 
ing revengefulness, and the so-called 'saints' — 
those slanderers of the world and traducers of 
humanity. The definite proof of the fact that the 
priest (including the priest in disguise, the phil- 
osopher) has become master, not only within a 
certain limited religious •community, but every- 
where, and that the morality of decadence, the 
will to nonentity, has become morality per se, is 
to be found in this : that altruism is now an 
absolute value, and egoism is regarded with hos- 
tility everywhere. He who disagrees with me on 
this po'int, I regard as infected. But all the world 
disagrees with me. To a physiologist a like an- 
tagonism between values admits of no doubt. If 
the most insignificant organ within the body neg- 
lects, however slightly, to assert with absolute cei- 
tainty its self-preservative powers, its recupera- 
tive claims, and its egoism, the whole system de- 
generates. The physiologist insists upon the re- 
moval of degenerated parts, he denies all fellow- 
feeling for such parts, and has not the smallest 
feeling of pity for them. But the desire of the 
priest is precisely the degeneration of the whole 
of mankind ; hence his preservation of that which 
is degenerate — this is what his dominion costs hu- 
manity. What meaning have those lying concept??, 
those handmaids of morality, 'Soul', 'Spirit', 
'Free will', 'God', if their aim is not the physio- 
logical ruin of mankind? When earnestness is 
diverted from the instincts that aim at self-preser- 
vation and an increase of bodily energy, i. e., at an 
increase of life; when anaemia is raised to an ideal 

203 



and the contempt of the body is construed as 'the 
salvation of the soul,' what is all this if it is not 
a recipe for decadence? Loss of ballast, resist- 
ance offered to natural instincts, selfishness, in 
fact — this is what has hitherto been known as 
morality. With The Dawn of Day I first engaged 
in a struggle against the morality of self-renuncia- 
tion." 

We can well understand how, with this spirit 
of antagonism to the moral laws and ideals that 
now govern civilised society, his Superman should 
have taken this one-sided and caricatured form. 
If Nietzsche were now alive and would allow me 
to use the German vernacular of which he is such 
a master, I am sure he would admit a gentle modi- 
fication of his views on the ideal man of the fu- 
ture. The terms of which I would remind him in 
his own language would be understood by good 
Germans of whom there must be many, who will 
condemn this war when once they have realised 
how it was begun, the forty years of systematic 
brutal and immoral, nay, perfidious, preparation 
for it by the leaders of their own people. When 
the materials for judging are no longer withheld 
from them, they will be able to recognise the 
rights and wrongs of its immediate beginnings, 
the fact that the much-hated England was free 
from all responsibility for it, (though the German 
officers for years asserted premeditated animosity 
against us) ; when they have realised the mon- 
strous injustice towards Belgium and the in- 
human pillages perpetrated by their arms during 
this war upon defenceless people ; all these people 
will understand, what Nietzsche the man, I am 
sure, understood and felt, when I appeal for the 
making of the ideal future man to Menschermehe 

204 



that their hearts will thrill in response at the sim- 
ple phrases: ein guter Mensch, ein gut-herziger 
Mensch; and their best taste will appreciate the 
supreme value of ein feiner Mensch, ein fein-fiih- 
lender Mensch. For all these terms there is no 
room in the composition of Nietzsche's Super- 
man; though I strongly suspect that Nietzsche 
the man and Nietzsche the gentleman, would at 
once have responded to these terms, however much 
he endeavoured to suppress and hide his approval 
of them in theory. 

It is difficult to gauge the exact extent of the in- 
fluence of Nietzsche upon the moral views and the 
practical conduct of the present generation of 
Germans. Some judges, who are in a position 
to know, maintain that it is very great ; others that 
it is not. There can be no doubt that since his 
death in 1889 he has been very widely read all 
over the world and especially in Germany, and 
that to some of the younger generation his Also 
sprach Zarathustra has become almost a Bible, 
and, that not only men but women as well, have 
been strongly affected in their morals and their 
views of life, if not their conduct, by the powerful 
rhetoric and the undoubted beauty of his passion- 
ate German prose. Some may have fondly 
thought that they had the elements of the super- 
man or superwoman in themselves, others may 
have been genuinely convinced of the claims of 
the superman as an ideal and may even have re- 
solved that they would follow the master 's dictates 
by their own suppression (Untergcmg) to further 
the event of the superman. But most of them 
were attracted by the promised freedom from the 
moral 'Conventions of the society in which they 
lived, which pressed heavily upon their strong 

205 



self-indulgent aspirations and by the convenient 
belief that to follow the natural instincts and pas- 
sions was of itself right. To a stronger and 
deeper degree than was the case with Ibsen's 
dramas and their opposition to the binding laws 
of conventional morality, there can be no doubt 
that the persuasive and lofty strength of Nietz- 
sche's rhetoric must have acted as a strong dis- 
solvent to the moral sense as we understand it 
and to every sense of impersonal duty and self- 
restraint. 

Still more difficult is it to determine how far 
Nietzsche is responsible for the part taken by the 
German people as a whole in this war and the 
frightfulness with which it is pursued. In so far 
as it is a popular war, it is based upon the convic- 
tion and the confidence of the people and their 
rulers of the existence and the absolute entity and 
unity of what they call their German Kultur; and 
furthermore of the superiority of this Kultur 
over the civilisation of all other nations. From 
this conviction the step is but a natural one to con- 
clude, that not only must it be guarded against 
destruction, interference or domination on the 
part of inferior civilisation — such as that of the 
Slav and even of the French and British — ; but 
that it ought to supersede and dominate — like a 
collective superman — the civilisation of the rest 
of the world, and as physical health is the first 
requirement for the production and the domin- 
ance of the superman, so physical or military 
power is the first requirement for the dominance 
of the superior German Kultur. Such, for in- 
stance, was, in a bold summary, the political phil- 
osophy of Treitschke and his followers. 

But Nietzsche did not consider German Kultur 

206 ' 



superior to all others. On the contrary, he 
formed a very low estimate of German Kultur 
and the Germans, whom he called the Kultur-Phil- 
istines. He herein agreed with Goethe who, in his 
talk with Eckerman said: "We Germans are of 
yesterday. No doubt in the last hundred years, 
we have been cultivating ourselves quite dili- 
gently; but it may take a few centuries yet be- 
fore our countrymen have absorbed sufficient in- 
tellect and higher culture for it to be said of them 
that it is a long time since they were barbarians.'^ 
Nietzsche's estimate of German culture is a very 
low one. He values Fren-ch thought and civilisa- 
tion much more highl}^ As regards Avhat I should 
like to call, the Art of Living he even placed the 
Slav higher than the German, and was singularly 
proud of being descended from the Polish gentry. 
He is astonished that Schopenhauer could live in 
Germany. ''Wherever Germany extends she 
ruins culture" he maintains. He even goes so far 
as to maintain that ' ' a German cannot know what 
music is. The men who pass as German musi- 
cians are foreigners — Slavs, Croats, Italianss, 
Dutchmen or Jews." He even hinted that "Rich- 
ard Wagner, the glory of German nationalism, 
was of Jewish descent since his real father seems 
to have been his step-father Geyer.^ He believes 
only in French culture ; all other culture is a mis- 
nomer. Of English culture he apparently had a 
limited and no first-hand knowledge. 

It would therefore be difficult to claim Nietzsche 
in support of the German ideal causes of this 
great war. All German politicians and historians 
he regarded with aversion and contempt, especi- 



(1) See Brandes Friedrich Nietssche, pp. 114 (8eq). 

207 



ally the so-called anti-Semites. "There is," he 
says, ^ "Such a thing as the writing of history 
according to the lights of Imperial Germany; 
there is, I fear, anti-Semitic history — there is 
also history written with an eye to the Court, and 
Herr von Treitschke is not ashamed of himself." 

Moreover, in contradistinction to the concep- 
tion of the state as the absolute entity from which 
all right of individual existence is derived, which 
forms the foundations of the theories of German 
historians and the practice of German Statesmen, 
Zarathustra loathed the State. To him "the State 
is the coldest of all cold monsters. Its fundamen- 
tal lie is that it is the people. In the State, the 
slow suicide of all is called life. The State is for 
the many, too many. Only where the State leaves 
off does the man who is not superfluous begin; 
the man who is a bridge to the superman."^ He 
even inveighs against the love of country. * 
"Exiles shall ye be from the fatherlands and your 
forefatherlands. Not the land of your fathers 
shall ye love, but your children's land." 

In spite of this we must believe that those who 
have been indoctrinated with Nietzsche's philoso- 
phy of the superman were morally well prepared 
to clamor for this war and to pursue it with the 
barbarian ruthlessness which has characterized it 
hitherto on the German side. Not because, after 
all, he was an artilleryman in the war of 1870; 
and, whether of Slav origin or an admirer of the 
French or not, he was still undeniably German in 
much of his mentality; nor even because he ex- 
tolled war as such. In this latter respect he cor- 



(1) Ecce Homo, p. 134. 

(2) Brandes, op. cit., p. 45 (seq). 

(3) Op cit., p. 47. 



208 



responds to his older contemporary, the philoso- 
pher Eduard von Hartmann, who exercised a 
great influence upon the German youth in the sec- 
ond half of the nineteenth century, and who may 
to some extent have influenced Nietzsche as well. 
I cannot do better than quote George Brandes' 
luminous exposition of the teachings of both these 
German philosophers: 

* ' Eduard von Hartmann believes in a beginning 
and end of the 'world process.' He concludes 
that no eternity can lie behind us ; otherwise every- 
thing possible must already have happened, which 
— according to his contention — is not the case. In 
sharp contrast to him, on this point as on others, 
Zarathustra teaches, with, be it said, a somewhat 
shallow mysticism — which is derived from the an- 
cient Pythagoreans ' idea of the circular course of 
history and is influenced by Cohelet's Hebrew 
philosophy of life — ^the eternal recurrence; that 
is to say that all things eternally return and we 
ourselves with them, that we have already existed 
an infinite number of times and all things with 
us. The great clock of the universe is to him an 
hour-glass, which is constantly turned and runs 
out again and again. This is the direct antithesis 
of Hartmann's doctrine oi universal destruction, 
and curiously enough it was put forward at about 
the same time by two French thinkers : by Blan- 
qui in L'Eternite par les Astres (1871), and by 
Gustave Le Bon in L' Homme et les Societes 
(1881). "Friedrich Nietzsche''—^. 48. 

The real influence of Nietzsche in producing the 
Germany of today, which is responsible for this 
war, is not so direct as regards the national atti- 
tude towards war, but is none the less effective in 
producing in those who have come under his in- 
fluence a moral which would account for its incep- 

209 



tion and the methods of its prosecution. On the 
negative side all idea of self-restraint, of the sup- 
pression of those instincts and passions which 
necessarily encourage envy and rapine, all consid- 
eration of the rights, the interests or the feelings 
of one's neighbour, all love and pity for man — 
all these hitherto accepted g"uides to conduct, are 
entirely suppressed. ^ 

On the positive side, however, the Will of Power 
is the supreme moral aim, as the desire for health 
and strength, for physiological life, are the su- 
preme physical goal. Between the ideal of the 
superman and its uncompromising colossal indivi- 
dualism, and those of the socialists, who consci- 
ously and definitely extol the supremacy of the 
proletariat as such, German national morals have 
contended with narrow Chauvinistic militant re- 



(1) "Spare not thy neighbour! My great love for the re- 
motest ones commands it. Thy neighbour is something that 
must be surpassed. 

"Say not: I will do unto others as I would they should do 
unto me. What thou doest, that can no man do to thee again. 
There is no requital. 

"Do not believe that thou mayst not rob. A right which 
thou canst seize upon, shalt thou never allow to be given thee. 

"Beware of good men. They never speak the truth. For all 
that they call evil — the daring venture, the prolonged distrust, 
the cruel Nay, the deep disgust with men, the will and the 
power to cut into the quick — all this must be present where 
a truth is to be born." 

See Brandes' "Friedrich Nietzsche" — p. 46. 

"Zarathustra is without mercy. It has been said : Push 
not a leaning waggon. But Zarathustra says: That which is 
ready to fall, shall ye also push. All that belongs to our day 
is falling and decaying. No one can preserve it, but Zarathustra 
will even help it to fall faster. 

"Zarathustra loves the brave. But not the bravery that takes 
lip every challenge. There is often more bravery in holding 
back and passing by and reserving one's self for a worthier foe. 
Zarathustra does not teach: Ye shall love your enemies, but: 
Ye shall not engage in combat with enemies ye despise. 

"Why so hard? men cry to Zarathustra. He replies: Why 
so hard, once said the charcoal to the diamond; are we not 
near of kin? The creators are hard. Their blessedness it is 
to press their hand upon future centuries as upon wax." 

"Friedrich Nietzsche" — p. 47. 

210 



ligious sects, unchristian in their fundamental 
spirit. Whenever these social forces divided 
among themselves the moral dominion of the peo- 
ple, the German ship of state would be cast from 
side to side in its course, rudderless, to the de- 
struction of itself and of the civilised world. 
Nietzsche's Individualism on the one side and un- 
compromising Socialism on the other, united in 
the Chauvinistic spirit both claim and aim at 
Power, and desire to wage relentless war against 
all opponents who stand in their way; Power is 
the immediate and supreme end of their aspira- 
tions. Of course between these two extremes lie, 
not the unthinking, low-minded, selfish, bourgeois 
Philistine without ideals; but the many clear- 
headed, warm-hearted and cultured Germans who 
have hitherto evoked the respect, the admiration, 
and even the affection, of the civilised world. 
These have not produced this war, excepting in so 
far as they have been completely misled by the 
suppression of truth and positive and systematic 
propagation of falsehood, not only in the imme- 
diate present and past but for many years before. 
As Brandes has pointed outr^ ''Nietzsche re- 
places Schopenhauer's Will to Life and Darwin's 
Struggle for Existence by the Will to Power. In 
his view the fight is not for life— bare existence— 
but for Power. And he has a great deal to say- 
somewhat beside the mark— of the mean and pal- 
try conditions those Englishmen must have had in 
view who set up the modest conception of the 
struggle for life. 

Here is to be found Nietzsche's contact with 
Darwin and his opposition to him; though there 
can be no doubt that the Darwinian theory was 

(1) Op. cit., p. 35. 

211 



to a very great extent responsible for his first 
conception of the superman. In the first place, 
however, it is based on a complete understanding 
of Darwin's own views. Darwin's theory of evo- 
lution was meant to furnish a scientific explana- 
tion of natural phenomena from a purely theoret- 
ical and scientific point of view. In so far it was 
not meant to be a practical or ethical guide to 
future conduct for man. It was eminently con- 
cerned with causation. Nietzsche's theory of the 
superman is nothing if not a practical and ethical 
attempt at fashioning man's conduct to lead to 
the production of the superman. It is chiefly tel- 
eological in character. The fundamental differ- 
ence between the two standpoints has long since 
been established, and has received the clearest 
exposition of their antithesis, in Kant's Kritic of 
Pure Reason on the one hand, and of his Kritic 
of Practical Reason on the other. Nietzsche's 
misunderstanding of Darwin's theory — if not his 
unfairness to him — consists in his attributing to 
Darwin's thoughts and writings a direct bearing 
upon ethical and practical problems of human life. 
This mistake has often been made before, and is 
constantly being made at the present moment by 
writers on ethics and pragmatics. It must al- 
ways be remembered that Science and pure phil- 
osophy endeavour to give a purely intellectual ex- 
planation of the world of phenomena, as well as 
of the world of nooumena, the world of facts and 
of thoughts, including even the theory of the uni- 
verse as well as of theology. Ethics, on the other 
hand, deals with what may be called ideal states, 
not with things as they are, but with things as 
man's best thought leads him to believe they 
ought to be : not with the cov but with ola el vat 

212 



5eZ as Aristotle puts it. In its widest aspect this 
ethical activity leads to) the problem as to the final 
aim of all human existence, if not of the universe. 
But even this final aim — such will ever remain 
the limitations of man — must be the aim of the 
universe from man's point of view, the terrestrial 
man, not even the inhabitants of Mars ; though it 
must be from man's highest and ultimate power 
of thought. 

To Nietzsche the final aim of existence is the 
production of the superman. He is the Endzweck. 
'Humanity must work unceasingly for the pro- 
duction of solitary great men, this and nothing 
else is its task.' But Nietzsche's superman could 
not have been conceived without the prevalent 
idea of evolution as established by Darwin for 
the age in which Nietzsche lived. During the per- 
iod of Nietzsche's life the main ideas of Darwin- 
ian evolution, with additional diffusion through 
the writings of Herbert Spencer, nowhere re- 
ceived greater currency and penetrated more 
widely among all layers lof society, than in Ger- 
many. This does not mean that its true depth 
and meaning, its accurate scientific limitation in 
generalisation, its spirit of conscientious and so- 
ber induction, which produces the highest spirit 
of intellectual morality among the esoteric ad- 
herents, penetrated among the people at large. 
Nor did it even reach Nietzsche himself who, on 
the contrary, revolted against, and was opposed 
to, the tyranny, the scientific spirit of persistent 
induction. But it did mean the diffusion of some 
of the leading ideas, snch as those lof progressive 
advance in the development of species throughout 
the ages, based upon the survival of the fittest. 
Such phrases, moreover, as 'the survival of the 

213 



fittest', more especially in tke particular aspect 
of the ' ' struggle for existence ' ' ( der Kampf urn 's 
Dasein), were the commonplace property of vast 
numbers of even illiterate Germans and were con- 
stantly on their lips. From an ethical point of 
view their application was not always happy or 
morally beneficial; and they not infrequently 
formed the intellectual justification to the moral 
selfishness and unscrupulousness of many an un- 
soicial 'Streber'. 

From a much higher point of view — ^perhaps to 
him not always quite consciously active in the for- 
mulation of his theories — Nietzsche applied the 
theory of evolution to his establishment of the 
theory of the superman in that he assumed the 
advance in the human species through the con- 
scious action of human individuals and hmnan so- 
ciety as a whole. In the beautiful symbolic lan- 
guage of Zarathustra : 

"Man is a connecting-rope between the animal 
and the superman — a rope over an abyss. 

"A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfar- 
ing, a dangerous retrospecting, a dangerous 
trembling and halting. 

"What is great in man is that he is a bridge 
and not a god; what can be loved in man is that 
he is a trafnsit and an exit. 

' ' I love such as know not how to live, except as 
those making their exit, for they are those making 
their transit, 

"I love the great despisers, because they are 
the great venerators, and arrows of aspirations 
for the other shore. 

"I love those who do not first seek a reason be 
yond the stars for making their exit and being 
sacrificed, but sacrifice themselves to the earth, 

214 



that the earth of the superman may arrive some 
day. 

"I love him who lives in order to know, and 
seeks to know in order that the superman may 
hereafter live. He thus seeks his own exit. 

"I love him who labours and invents, that he 
may build the house for the superman, and pre- 
pare for him earth, animal and plant ; for he thus 
seeks his own exit. ' ' 

The practical forerunner of the fully achieved 
superman is the man of genius. Those who are 
not of the species genius (this means human so- 
ciety as a whole) have, as their aim of existence, 
to favour and to facilitate the realisation of gen- 
ius, so that the final goal in the production of the 
superman may be reached. It will, of course, be 
difficult for the individual to determine whether 
he is to obey or to command, whether he is of 
common clay or of the stuff of which the genius 
is made. In the determination of this fact lies 
many a pit-fall in the actual course of human life. 

But the main question as regards the practical 
ethics of Nietzsche is how the superman is to be 
produced; not he who is to obey and follow, but 
he who is to command and lead. It is here that, to 
my mind, the whole theory of Nietzsche's super- 
man fails, I venture to surmise, because of a com- 
plete misapprehension of the Darwinian theory 
of evolution and its misplaced and crude applica- 
tion to ethics. The Darwinian theory of evolu- 
tion, which, I repeat, was emphatically not meant 
to be teleoilogical, but strictly causal, simply ac- 
counted for the survival of the fittest in nature's 
great struggle for existence, chiefly through adap- 
tation of the organism to its environment. Dar- 
win himself repeatedly points out the unethical, 

215 



if not immoral, cruelty of nature in this process. 
Bacon tootk quite a different point of view when 
he upheld the great aim of man placed in nature 
as the establishment of the Regnum Hominis, the 
reasoned victory of man over the unreasoned 
course of nature. But Darwin deals with no such 
prospect of man's activity, and is simply con- 
cerned with the natural progress arising out of 
such an adaptive principle which leads to the sur- 
vival of the fittest. From man's point of view, 
however, if he wishes consciously to apply the 
principle of the adaptation to the environment, 
there is no chance of advancement or progress 
unless the environment itself, as, if I may say so, 
almost a. planetary body, advances. For man may 
adapt himself to physical conditions that are 
'Mower" instead of "higher." As a matter of 
fact a good deal of the political and social ethics 
of our own days is nothing more nor less than 
this ethical opportunism, of adaptation of man's 
life to the surrounding conditions of nature, the 
final goal of which is merely physical subsistence 
or at most increase of comfort. In one aspect of 
his powerful writings Nietzsche fulminates 
against this ideal of comfort. We are thus in a 
vicious circle if we apply the Darwinian principle 
of evolution direct to ethical principles. Our only 
hope would be in a fatalistic renunciation as re- 
gards all ethical progress, in which we hope that 
the environing nature itself may ' * improve " ; so 
that by adapting himself to his environment man 
himself may improve and ultimately rise to gi-eat- 
er heights of human existence. For Nietzsche's 
superman, however, this environment does not 
only consist in the physical conditions in which 
the human animal finds himself living and by 

216 



which he is surrounded; but in the physical con- 
ditions of man's own body and his own instincts, 
his inner force of living. These are to guide him. 
He is to follow these as his true friends and to 
deny them no claims which they may press upon 
his conscious will. They thus really become the 
"environment" to the central personality of the 
individual, which we may call soul, spirit, or what- 
ever else we like. But here again we are placed in 
the vicious circle, though a circle one step higher 
than, or perhaps only nearer to, the central core 
of individual man. For we can hardly see how 
mere physical health by itself lor the following of 
our individual instincts and passions can ensure 
progress and lead us to the true superman, unless 
we can assume that these instincts and passions 
themselves and in themselves ''improve" and go 
to the making of the superman.^ 

On the contrary, not only the unbiased study 
of anthropology, ethnology, archaeology and his- 
tory, but also our daily experience of life, teach 
us that the pursuit of our instincts and passions, 
unrestricted and unhampered by any further con- 
sideration or guiding principle, lead, not only to 
the misery, if not the destruction, of other indi- 
vidual life ; but in no way produce the type which 
approaches the conception of even the meanest 
imagination as to what a superman ought to be. 
Nietzsche apparently has forgotten or ignored 
(excellent Greek scholar though he was) the sim- 
ble statement of Aristotle that man is foJov 
TToXiTtKov. Were each man completely iso- 



(1) I may at once anticipate here, what will be dealt with in 
the course of this enquiry, and say, that only when idealism ie 
called in to supplement evolutionism, when Plato and Aristotle — 
or rather Plato and Darwin — are reconciled and united can 
the theory of evolution be applied to Ethics. 

217 



lated and destined to live the life of an absolute 
anchorite, without any relationsliip to other men, 
it might perhaps be maintained that his cliief task 
would then be to adapt himself to his environment, 
which includes his body and liis instincts. But 
even then — as I shall have occasion to show — 
there is a point of view from which this would be 
grossly immoral, if not grossly mitrue to human 
nature as such. 

The chief and perhaps lasting importance of 
Nietzsche does not lie in his positive, but in his 
negative activity. It lies not so much in his ap- 
plication of the Darwinian principle of evolution 
to ethics and sociology, as in his powerful indict- 
ment of the actual state of the social and etliical 
environment of man, the adaption to which 
forms the process of evolution. He shows that this 
ethical and social environment is unfavourable to 
the advancement of the best : that Christian ethics 
consistently followed are ethics for slaves — ^for 
the weak, both physically and morally, the infer- 
ior, both physical and moiral ; and that in truth it 
retards, rather than advances, the progress of the 
human type. As many have thus done before and 
since, he — perhaps with more uncompromising 
truthfulness and powerful rhetoric — has shown 
up the immorality of the ascetic ideal. With deep 
insight and learning, as well as with acute critical 
incisiveness, he has traced the real origin of this 
ideal in the past back to the dominance of the 
inferior masses and has called it the ethics of 
slaves. It is the hatred and envy of the weak in 
body towards the healthy and strong, of the down- 
trodden and morally servile towards the ruling 
and lofty spirits. Its ideal has been to repress 
and to crush bodily health and all that makes for 

218 



its advancement and increase. It thus necessarily 
leads to the survival of the unfittest. It has en- 
deavoured to make of the human body a thing of 
ugliness worthy of contempt and suppression: 
whereas it is a thing of beauty, worthy of rever- 
ence and claiming worship and freedom for all 
its natural functions. So too the morally weak 
and lowly are not to be protected, encouraged and 
exalted; but they are to be superseded by the 
strong and lofty spirits. This constitutes the 
strong aristocratic principle in Nietzsche, first 
recogTiised by Brandes, whose essay on that phil- 
osopher is entitled '^ Aristocratic Radicalism." 

We must alwa.ys remember that, though in the 
relentless struggle of the modem economic world 
the financially-fittest survive and crush the finan- 
cially unfit, our individual and social morality and 
the firmly established sway of democratic prin- 
ciples distinctly support and favour the aims of 
"the people," or at least their '^ greatest num- 
ber." There is thus a direct contradiction be- 
tween actuality and ideality, between the existing 
rule of life and the ethical rule. By far the great- 
est and most important aspect of modem econ- 
omic and social struggle centres round this dual- 
ism and antagonism. Nietzsche boldly and un- 
compromisingly takes his stand against the 
masses : 

' ' Significant of Nietzsche 's aristocratic tenden- 
cy, so marked later, is his anger with the defer- 
ence paid by modern historians to the masses. 
Formerly, he argues, history was written from the 
standpoint of the rulers; it was occupied exclu- 
sively with them, however mediocre or bad they 
might be. Now it has crossed over to the stand- 
point of the masses. But the masses — they are 
only to be regarded as one of three things : either 

219 



as copies of great personalities, bad copies, cliun- 
sily produced in a pooT material, or as foils to the 
great, or finally as their tools. Otherwise they 
are matter for statisticians to deal with, who find 
so-called historical laws in the instincts of the 
masses — aping, laziness, hunger and sexual im- 
pulse. What has set the mass in motion for any 
length of time is then called great. It is given the 
name of a historical power. When, for example, 
the vulgar mob has appropriated or adapted to its 
needs some religious idea, has defended it stub- 
bornly and dragged it along for centuries, then 
the originator of that idea is called great. There 
is the testimony of thousands of years for it, we 
are told. But — this is Nietzsche's and Kierke- 
gaard's idea — the noblest and highest does not 
affect the masses at all, either at the moment or 
later. Therefore the historical success of a relig- 
ion, its toughness and persistence, witness against 
its founder's greatness rather than for it." 

Brandes' ^^Friedrich Nietzsche" — p. 19. 

The advent of the superman is thus not only re- 
tarded, it is completely checked. All our moral 
values are out of focus, they merely tend to pro- 
duce these false and nefarious results. Pity, al- 
truism, generosity, and even justice, are mere 
figments created to support this rule of the weak, 
the lower individuals, and the masses, low in the 
aggregate, all blocking the way to the free devel- 
opment of the superior individual who leads to 
the superman. 

Nietzsche who in his earlier essays, Thoughts 
out of Season, criticises with most ingenious in- 
cisiveness the dominance of the historical ele- 
ments in German education, to which he attributes 
all that is defective in the preparation of his 
countrymen for a healthy and advancing practical 
life, here falls into the very pitfall against which 

220 



lie wishes to guard his countrymen, when dealing 
with the fundamental elements and qualities 
which make up the higher human being. His own 
historical bias blinds him to the needs of the pres- 
ent and the aspirations of the fnture in the crea- 
tion of a superman. He has deceived himself into 
believing that, by accounting for the origin of a 
human institution or ideal he has destroyed its 
intrinsic value and nobility in the present and its 
beneficent effectiveness in the future. Whether 
his theories of the origin and dominance of the 
ideas of pity, of altruism, and of justice, be well 
founded in fact as regards the past or not, the 
highest conception of man as such in the highest 
phases of man's historical evolution in the past, 
and certainly in the present, and for any future 
projection of man in the imagination of the lof- 
tiest types of the present, has and will maintain 
the elements he thus spurns as essential to the 
conception of a superman. 

To us who fundamentally believe in the super- 
man as a true, just and elevating ideal for the 
future : 

A superman without love and pity is a monster ; 

A superman without self-restraint, without the 
control of the mind over the body, is a monster ; 

A superman without self-effacement in view of 
the good of humanity and the world in which he 
is but a unit and mite, is a monster or will soon 
grow into one ; 

A superman who believes that the aim of the 
existence of others is merely to facilitate nis own 
self-realisation is a monster ; 

A superman who knows that he is one or be- 
must go to the madhouse or the gallows; 
lieves that he is becoming one, is a monster and 

A superman who, in becoming one, does not 

221 



hold before him an impersonal model of super- 
iority and perfectability or, at least, an objectified 
ideal of himself but merely follows his natural in- 
stincts, is a monster ; 

A superman who in this idea of his perfect self 
does not include self-discipline and social altru- 
ism is a monster. 

Yet in this condemnation of Nietzsche 's Immor- 
ality and his distorted apprehension, not only of 
social man, but of individual man, we must not 
fall into the same error of negative and positive 
exaggeration which prevent the life work of this 
genius from producing the full fruits of his la- 
bours for the advancement of mankind. He has 
once and for all clearly established the rights of 
the instincts to self-preservation, physical and 
moral, to be considered in eveiy ethical system, 
even the loftiest, as not being bad but noble and 
good. They have in themselves the inalienable 
right to be considered, to move and to guide man 
even in his most conscious activity, unless some 
other current of higher social duties, recognised 
and admitted by man's reason lead him to sus- 
pend their sway. Every system of ethics which 
denies this and lowers the sanctity of the body 
and the rightness of man's instincts in themselves 
is either immoral or unreasonable and degrading 
to man. 

His other lasting achievement in the domain of 
morals and sociology is his advocacy of the aris- 
tocratic principle in social evolution, which raises 
the whole domain of ethics from a fatalistic 
sphere of stagnation, if not retrogression, for 
man and mankind, to a higher sphere of progress 
in life, of an unbroken advance in the ethics of 
society, and of a continuous approach to the reali- 



222 



sation of a higher type in the human nature of 
the future. But this higher type will not be guid- 
ed by blind instinct or passion, or by the desire 
for power as such, but will necessarily mean the 
morally higher man. 

Nietzsche's personality and its expression in 
his works \vill, however, stand out most markedly 
in the history of our age, because of his uncom- 
promising truthfulness, in his impeachment of the 
current standards of morality and their inade- 
quacy in expressing the best and highest in us, as 
well as their inefficiency to regulate the actions 
of the individual and of society at large in the 
directions which lead us on towards a superman, 
instead of down to the barbarian and the vicious 
brute. 

I have selected him and his views for fuller 
treatment and criticism, not only because his 
teachings may have a more direct bearing on this 
tragic war, but because he is thus the clearest 
and most emphatic exponent of the inadequacy of 
the practical morals of our day and the crying 
need for a bold and truthful reconsideration of 
public and private ethics. Such a treatment, how- 
ever, must not follow the lines hitherto adopted 
of vague and general speculation from a purely 
scientific and theoretical point of view, dealing 
with the origin of ethics and the basis of human 
morality; nor must it merely be concerned with 
the historical enquiry into the ethical systems of 
the past; but it must definitely and boldly aim 
at the establishment of the moral code which, with 
our clearest and best thoughts, we can recognise 
to be dominant in the present, in order to prepare 
for an advance in the moral health of the individ- 
ual and of society at large in the future. On the 

223 



other hand, we need not, as Nietzsche wished us 
to do, deny our past, sever ourselves from it by a 
violent cataclysmal denunciation; nor need we 
forego the indubitable virtue of reverence which 
Jhis superman must have in his composition, at 
least in contemplating a still higher superman, 
and which his ' ' obedients ' ' must feel for the sup- 
erman. We must not deny our origin and must 
gratefully recognise what was good in our past. 
I have, therefore, chosen the three great types 
who, to my mind, embody the essential elements 
in all ethics — of the past, of the present,, and for 
the future — from which to focus the three general 
elements which make up the moral life of man in 
its widest aspect: Moses, Christ and Plato. They 
typify Duty, Charity and Ideality. Inseparably 
interw^oven, acting upon one another and modify- 
ing each other, these three main aspects of the 
moral world, as it lives in man's soul or may, we 
hope, exist beyond the spheres terrestrial, will 
help us to an understanding of man in the past, 
harmonise our actions to ennoble ourselves and 
to benefit our neighbour, while increasing the hap- 
piness of each; and will make of each one of us, 
and through us, of our surroundings, forces, how- 
ever weak, which will lead to the perfecting of 
future man. What is needed now, above all the 
crying needs of civilised humanity, is that those 
who can think best and are most representative 
of the civilisation in which we live, should hold 
up a mirror to their age, so that humanity can 
see itself truthfully; and that they should truth- 
fully and boldly tabulate what in their best belief 
constitutes the good and the right, irrespective 
of what was held of old, irrespective of dominant 
traditions and institutions. Difficult as it always 

224 



will be to express the most complex thoughts 
clearly and oonvincingly by means of faltering 
hmnan language, they should nevertheless at- 
tempt to fix these thoughts, so that he who runs 
mav read. 



225 



PART in. THE MORAL DISEASE AND ITS 
CURE 

CHAPTER I 

The Codification of Modern Morals 

Wliat modem man and modern society require, 
above all things, is a clear and distinct codifica- 
tion of the moral consciousness of civilised man, 
not merely in a theoretical disquisition or in vague 
and general terms, which evade immediate ap- 
plication to the more complex or subtle needs of 
our daily life; but, one which, arising out of the 
clear and unbiased study of the actual problems 
of life, is fitted to meet every definite difficulty 
and to direct all moral effort towards one great 
and universally accepted end. It is the absence 
of such an adequate ethical code, truly expressive 
of the best in us and accepted by all and the means 
of bringing such a code to the knowledge of men, 
penetrating our educative system in its most ele- 
mentary form as it applies even to the youngest 
children and is continuously impressed upon all 
people in every age of their life — it is the absence 
of such an effective system of moral education 
which lies at the root of all that is bad and ir- 
rational, not only in individual life, but in national 
life, and that has made this great war at once 
barbarous, pedantically cruel and unspeakably 
stupid — possible in modern times. 

The reason why such an adequate expression of 
moral consciousness has not existed among us, 

226 



in spite of the eminently pra<?tical and urgent 
need, is that the constitution and the teaching of 
ethics have been relegated to the sphere of theor- 
etical study of principles, historical or specula- 
tive, and have not directly been concerned with 
establishing a practical guide to conduct. No real 
attempt has been made to draw up a code of ethics 
to meet the actual problems of daily life. Or, 
when thus considered in its immediate and prac- 
tical bearings, this task has been relegated to the 
churches and to the priests. 

It cannot be too emphatically stated that, 
though never divorced from each other, religion 
and ethics envisage quite different spheres, and 
that when in their practice and activity they are 
indiscriminately mixed up with one another, this 
fusion does not tend to the good of either. The 
confusion of the primary attitude of mind which 
they imply and the definite spheres of activity 
which they are meant to control results in the 
lowering or weakening of the spirit and the prac- 
tice of each. Ethics alone can never replace relig- 
ion. Religion alone, when wholly dominating the 
heart and mind of man, cannot prepare him to 
solve the problems of ethics with a clear and un- 
biased mind, intent upon the weighing of evidence 
and the searching enquiry into the practical needs 
of society and of individual life. The at once del- 
icate and exalted moods of religious feeling and 
of religious thought — not to mention the complex 
and remote dogmas of each religion — are, to say 
the least, not favourable to the sober, dispassion- 
ate and searching analysis of motives, of actions 
and their results in the daily life of man, or the 
relations between communities and states. More- 
over, this strictly logical, unemotional and sober 

227 



analysis and its prospective applioation to the 
regulation of material prosperity, as well as spir- 
itual health, is of itself destructive of the very 
essence of that emotional exaltation and that 
touch of mysticism which forms an essential ele- 
ment of the religious mood. Its intrusion into 
the domain of pure religion is of itself lowering 
to such exaltation and destructive of its most deli- 
cate and, at the same time, most powerful spirit- 
ual force. 

Furthermore, it has undeniably been an ele- 
ment in all religions of the past that they should 
be strongly conservative, and, at all events, fer- 
vently reverential towards the past teachings of 
their founders and tenacious of this teaching con- 
verted into dogma in bygone ages. In so far they 
are neither fully adapted to consider with clear 
and unbiased receptiveness, the actual problems 
of the present, which are generally strongly con- 
trasted to the life of the past ; while much of this 
lucidity will be lost when an attempt is made to 
translate the complex life of today into the sim- 
pler conditions of the past. Moreover in religion 
all is seen through a veil of antique mysticism. 
Nor, still less, can such a conservative attitude 
of mind be favourable to the essential spirit of 
change, to the adaptation to new conditions implied 
in the conscious evolution of man towards the 
higher conditions of a progressive society, and 
to the continuous flow implied in the very prin- 
ciple of life which, in the moral and practical 
spheres are the organic element of a normal, ra- 
tional and healthy society. No doubt we may 
rightly hold, that, from one point of view, religion 
enters into every aspect of man's existence, and 
that it may form the ultimate foundation of our 

223 



whole moral and intellectual activity. But it does 
not and cannot deal directly with the practical 
world, and cannot intrude itself into our con- 
sciousness when we are bound to concentrate all 
our mental and even physical energies upon the 
consummation of some definite task in the ever 
varying change of our actual life. It is concerned 
with man's relation to his highest ultimate ideals 
and is based upon his higher emotional, and not 
his practical and strictly logical, consciousness. 
It implies no adaptation to surrounding and vary- 
ing conditions, no compromise within the struggle 
of contending claims. In his truly religious 
moods, in his communion with the Supra-Natural, 
with his ultimate ideals, there is no room for com- 
promise, practical opportunism and the adapta- 
tion to the ever-changing oonditions of actual life. 

Hence, the priest is not directly fitted to be 
the transmitter of this mioral code of a healthy 
society in directing the young and in advising the 
adults as a minister of a definite religious creed. 
His ethical teaching must always be directly sub- 
ordinated to the dogmatic creed which he pro- 
fesses ; and his habit of mind, as well as his con- 
scious purpose, must in so far unfit him for the 
problem of establishing a living code of practical 
ethics and of impressing it clearly as a teacher 
upon old and young. 

Moreover, in the present condition of the mod- 
ern world, we are brought face to face with a 
definite fact which, perhaps, more than anything 
else, has stood in the way of effective and normal 
advancement of moral teaching among us. For 
in every community we have not only one creed, 
but a number of creeds ; and, whatever their close 
relationship to one another may in many instan- 

229 



ces be as regards the fundamental religious tenets, 
they differ in organisation and administration 
and in the personality of their ministrants to such 
a degree, that such difference not infrequently 
means rivalry and antagonism. The most prac- 
tical result in our own national life is 
clearly brought before us in the promulga- 
tion of the various Education Acts which, 
in great part, were merely concerned with 
the adjustment of the claims of the varied 
sects among us. They have thus led to the 
exclusion of direct religious teaching and the re- 
tention of mere scripture reading as the only di- 
rectly spiritual and moral element in public in- 
struction, or they have led, and may lead, to the 
division of spheres of activity of each one of these 
sects and their clerical representatives of differ- 
ing forms of religious and moral instruction 
among separate groups of children. That the im- 
pression upon tlie youthful mind, in so glaring 
and manifest a form, of fundamental differences 
in religious and moral principles between them, 
(perhaps suggesting and establishing false stand- 
ards of social distinction as well), cannot be con- 
sidered in itself a moral gain to the establishment 
of a healthy social instinct in the hearts of the 
individuals or the development of a healthy and 
harmonious national and social life for the com- 
munity at large, can hardly be denied. At all 
events, such a state of affairs does not bring us 
nearer to the formulation of a conunon ethical 
code, expressive of the highest national life on 
the ethical side mthin each age, and the promise 
of a growing development for the future. Mean- 
while, whatever may exist among us of ethical 
principles and moral practices to which we all 

230 



subscribe, is eliminated from the activity of our 
educational institutions; and the younger genera- 
tion grows up without any instruction in common 
morality and without any clear knowledge of its 
definite principles. 

On the other hand, I should not like it to be 
thought that I ignore, or am unmindful of, the 
good work which the priests of all denominations 
have done on the moral side in the past and are 
doing in the present. Whether priests of the 
Church of England or of the Church of Rome, or 
ministers of the numerous Christian sects, or 
Rabbis, they have in great numbers devoted them- 
selves to the betterment of their fellow men, they 
have held aloft the torch of idealism, and many 
of them stand out as the noblest types of a life 
of self-abnegation devoted to the progress to- 
wards a lofty ideal with complete self-effacement. 
The positive good which they have done and are 
doing is undeniable.^ The picture of an English 
village without its church, not only as a symbol of 
higher spiritual aspirations, but as an active 
means of providing for the dull and often purely 
material daily life of the inhabitants, a gleam of 
elevating life and beauty, must make him hesitate 



(1) On the other hand that strictly clerical morality has gone 
hopelessly astray. The type of the clergyman and his family, 
far from extravagantly drawn, and the result of what I should 
like to call catecliismal ethics have never been more powerfully 
presented than in the history of the Pontifex family in Samuel 
Butler's "The Way of all Flesh." This uncaricatured satire of 
the results of catechismal morality gives an intensely tragic 
picture of life far from imcommon in the immediate past and 
far from obsolete in the present. Nor are tlie Pontifex's types 
of a lower order of Christian or clerical society. Tliey are good 
people of the worst kind. The ethical teaching which denied 
all right to health, pleasure, brightness in life, prematurely and 
iisastrously introduces into the pure mind of the young the 
idea of Sin, its prevalence, and its dominance, and fills us with 
revolt and loathing against such a code and such a system oi 
ethics, which we must consider one of the worst crimes which 
adult man can commit, namely, crime against the young and 
the helpless. 

231 



who ruthlessly would destroy it by missiles of 
cold thought, as those of German steel have ac- 
tually destroyed the churches in Belgium and 
France, and shudder at the devastation he might 
cause. But the firm conviction that what he has 
to offer is not sheer and wanton destruction ; but 
that the growth and spread of true morality will 
clear the way for a brighter, higher and nobler 
life, ending in the expansion and advancement of 
pure and uncontaminated religi'on, removes all 
doubt and fear and strengthens our conviction in 
the Tightness of the cause for which we also are 
prepared to lay down our lives. 
- We cannot admit that a morality, however ade- 
quate and high it may have been for the Jews 
living many centuries ago, can be adapted and 
fitted to the requirements of modern society with- 
out great confusion and loss in this process of 
adaptation. This is especially the case when, as 
a chief ground for its unqualified acceptance, re- 
ligious dogma steps in and maintains that it is of 
direct divine origin. Even when thus accepted 
and effective as a guide to conduct by many, many 
remain who do not honestly accept the evidence 
of this direct divine origin. The effect upon these 
latter is one of clear opposition to the binding 
power of such moral laws and may end in an 
opposition to all moral laws. 



232 



CHAPTER II 
The Teaching of Moses 

We must recognise witii reverence the exist- 
ence of moral laws, such as those of Moses, in the 
past, and the fact that, in the evolution of his- 
tory, they form the basis of our progressive mor- 
al consciousness in the present. We must also 
regard with gratitude and admiration the achieve- 
ment of those who established such an ethical 
code for our ancestors, upon which our moral 
consciousness ultimately rests, and from which 
we are bound to work onwards and upwards as 
the conditions of life and the growth of human 
knowledge bid us and enable us to do in the pres- 
ent. 

Whatever may have been the achievements of 
Khammurabi and of other law-givers, kings, 
priests and philosophers, in the dim antiquity of 
mankind, to us and to the preceding ages of our 
own civilisation, the Ten Commandments of Moses 
mark the greatest step in the establishment of 
law and morality. To him who casts his eye over 
the evolution of man, from the earliest prehistoric 
ages onward, the more or less chaotic conditions 
of human inter^course and incipient social organi- 
sation the summarisation in definite human lan- 
guage, reduced to the shortest and most compact 
form and responding to the essential needs of 
human society in these Ten Commandments is 
one of the greatest feats of the human mind in 
the past. The very fact of their constraining in- 



233 



fluence throughout all the changes of countless 
ages and of ethical and climati-c and racial con- 
ditions, diifering so widely from those which ob- 
tained when Moses proclaimed them to the people 
of Israel, is so wonderful, that in itself it 
approaches the miraculous. It is well, however, 
to remember that Moses was the law-giver and 
Aaron was the priest. 

On the other hand, we must recognise that if 
the task of moral teaching had not been completely 
usurped by the churches, with the exception of 
the legal element which has been taken over by 
the legal functions of the state and the establish- 
ment of judiciary poM^ers there would have been — 
or certainly ought to have been — ^a succession of 
moral codes promulgated in various countries and 
periods and accepted by the people. Yet, the 
Mosaic laAvs, having been incorporated as a moral 
code into the body of the doctrine of the Jewish, 
Christian and even the Mahommedan churches, 
not only preserved their binding quality, but also 
effectively prevented their future development, 
modification and adaptation and the infusion of 
newer moral codes into the life of successive so- 
cieties. 

Herein lies one of the peculiarities of Jewish 
religion and ritual and the consequent effective- 
ness of the religious morality among the Jews 
in all times. In Biblical days Israel was a theo- 
cracy and the priests were at the same time the 
rulers of the people and their guides in all con- 
ditions of national and social life. In Eabbinic 
times the rabbi, besides being the minister of 
religion was, above all, the teacher of the people 
and the head of the community. Down to our 
very days the truly Jewish communities (I am 

234 



not referring to the Christianised and modernised 
reformed sects, who in so far are not distinctly 
Jewish) the synagogue is called the schul, which 
is the school for secular teaching as well as relig- 
ion. It is from this school and the presiding rabbi 
that the Rabbinic and Talmudic teaching, succeed- 
ing and supplementing the Mosaic teaching has 
emanated. The Jews have thus always had the ele- 
ments of moral evolution and have progressed in 
their general social organisation with the advance 
of ages. Their law and their morality effectively 
penetrated into the actual life of the people and 
produced for them higher spiritual standards and 
definite ethical codes which fitted them for the 
conditions of life in which they found themselves ; 
while always providing a spiritual stimulus to- 
wards moral progress, in spite of the occasional 
retrogressions caused by the lowered standards of 
the actual life about them, as well as the formali- 
sation and deadening to which such theological 
and ritual teaching naturally tends. 

It is thus that in the Talmudic and other writ- 
ings we have the striking mixture of lofty moral 
aspirations — subtle, intellectual, refining thought 
— with an active and penetrating application 
to the actual demands of daily life, its 
business and its pleasures: and all dialectic for- 
malism tied down to precedents of former dicta 
of earlier rabbis, as well as the pronouncements of 
the Bible itself, raised more or less to the weight 
and importance of religious authority. 

In the course of time this formalistic element 
grew ; until the slightest ritual aspects of the func- 
tions of daily life, for instance, as regards the 
keeping of the Sabbath, were not only raised out 
of all proportion in moral significance and value, 

235 



but were even robbed of what dignity and im- 
portance they may have had in their relation to- 
actual daily life. Nevertheless, it is to this effec- 
tive and progressive moral life of the Jewish 
people in all ages, and to the approximation be- 
tween their higher moral codes and the practice 
of daily life, that I venture to attribute the tenac- 
ity of their survival as a people, and the superior- 
ity and success which has been theirs in all times, 
wherever they have lived, even amid persecution 
and conditions most unfavourable to the develop- 
ment of a higher life. 

But the Ten Commandments of Moses have been 
embodied in Christian ethics and have become 
canonical in the religious writings of the Christian 
World. Their importance for the world will ever 
be that they are the first general and abstract pro- 
nouncement and expression of the ideas of duty 
and justice as such. This is what they mean in 
their totality, and is a summary of their injunc- 
tion. They thus imply and recognise the sense of 
duty in man as opposed to his instinctive tenden- 
cies, of the mere animal in man, leading to 
the establishment of civilised society; and I, re- 
peat, that they have thus formed the foundation 
for the moral consciousness, not only of the West- 
ern world, but of Mahommedanism as well. Some 
of these injunctions no longer belong to the do- 
main of ethics, but have been completely merged 
in our laws. 

In the evolution of social organisms, ending in 
the full establishment of the state, the judicial 
fun-ction, the promulgation of laws and the admin- 
istration of justice, become, together with the es- 
tablishment of security from inimical aggression 
from without, the chief functions of the statue. 

236 



Law becomes the principal guide to public and in- 
dividual -conduct. But laws can only deal with 
broad and manifest acts, they are not concerned 
with the inner moral consciousness of man or his 
more delicate relations in daily life. We may say 
that, so soon as actions directly enter the province 
of law, they no longer enter the domain of ethics — 
which is far from meaning, that they become un- 
ethical, but that their premisses assume another 
validity before ethical thought begins. They are 
admitted and taken for granted; and the respon- 
sibility of the individual to establish the rightness 
of them or to enforce obedience to them, no longer 
exists. 

On the other hand, when the moral conscious- 
ness of the people finds that these laws are an- 
tiquated, that their action no longer conforms to 
ethical demands or even directly runs -counter to 
them, a general impulse is created towards the 
modification of such existing laws in conformity 
with the ethical consciousness of the people and 
the age. In great part this process marks the 
progressive legislative function of the state. When 
moral tenets have become of such universal 
importance and validity that they distinctly 
modify the actions of larger groups of people, they 
may then produce laws. For instance, when the 
moral feeling of the public revolted against the 
tyranny of the employer over the employed, the 
Factory Acts were promulgated and became law, 
insisting upon the moral responsibilities of the 
employer towards his workmen. Under the same 
category would come all the encroachments of pub- 
lic laws on the personal and domesti<} freedom 
of the individual. So too it may be found that 
certain established laws evoked by the temporary 

237 



conditions in which civilisation found itself at a 
given moment, are no longer useful, and may even 
be harmful and immoral, when the social condi- 
tions have altered. They will then have to be re- 
pealed or modified. Thus the laws against witch- 
craft and those upholding the privileges of certain 
classes to the detriment of others, against whi-ch 
the moral consciousness of the people revolted, 
have been repealed or altered. This interaction 
between Ethics and Law forms to a great extent 
the very life of the state and the progressive spirit 
in its evolution. Now the progressive spirit thus 
manifested in the interaction between Ethics and 
Law must be carried into the life of Ethics it- 
self. New conditions should be established for 
this organic development of Ethics ; and it is the 
establishment of such conditions which I am ad- 
vocating as the supreme need of modern times. 
We thus require a clear codification so as to be 
recognised by all people, which must be the es- 
sential condition for a possible and even a facile 
modification of our common ethical code in 
response to the needs of our social life and the 
advancement of our ethical consciousness. 

A great and important part of the Mosaic Com- 
mandments has thus reached the phase of law: 
''Thou shalt not kill"; "Thou shalt not steal"; 
*'Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy 
neighbor"; even ''Thou shalt not commit 
adultery" — these Commandments practically need 
no longer make an appeal to the ethical conscious- 
ness of most of us who are not born criminals 
because they have been embodied in our public 
laws; and conformity to them is exacted by all 
the -constraining power of the state. On the other 
hand, public law is not concerned itself with inner 

238 



morality and man's relation to his fellow men 
which, for instance, are smnmarised under the 
term of covetousness, a condition which may lead, 
when that impulse is followed, to most degrading 
actions as regards the perpetrator and most harm- 
ful deeds as regards the victims, even ending in 
crime. The inner moral state, though it be the 
•cause of even criminal action, of which latter the 
state takes cognisance through its laws, is of it- 
self not the concern of law, but purely of ethics. 
But Mosaic Commandments already deal with 
these more subtle and even recondite spiritual fac- 
tors, and in a short and concentrated form touch 
upon, if they do not -cover, the main groupings of 
all moral states and duties. 

The Ten Commandments, as a canon of liunian 
duties, naturally fall under three main heads 
which remain the three natural groupings of 
human duties for all times. The first is the duty 
to God, the second the duty to oneself, the third 
the duty to man and mankind. After enquiring 
into the adequacy with which they respond to these 
three groups of duties, and the modifications and 
additions in the teaching of Christ, I shall en- 
deavour to sketch out the need of further ethical 
codification in our own times. 

1. One of the great and lasting a-chievements 
of the Mosaic law and of the Jewish religion in 
all times is, that it established the spiritual con- 
ception of the Deity in so far as the people of 
that age were able to rise into the domain of 
pure spirituality. The essence of the First and 
Second Commandments is the insistence upon the 
spiritual nature of the Divinity in opposition to 
the lower practice of * idolatry,' prevalent among 
the other peoples of which the people of Israel had 

239 



knowledge, and, no doubt, prevalent within the 
Jewish communities in the earlier stages of their 
development — to which earlier state there are o-c- 
casional relapses censured and opposed by their 
spiritual rulers. The Jews thus had forcibly en- 
joined upon them the duty of living up to the 
highest ideals to which their moral imagination 
could attain in the conception they formed of their 
divinity. That this is in itself one of the highest 
moral achievements no right minded and unbiased 
thinker can deny. The actual worship of an image 
wrought by man's hand, or selected by him casu- 
ally from the realm of nature, often an object pos- 
sessing no higher spiritual quality of any kind — 
all of which is implied in the term idolatry — cer- 
tainly marks a lower stage in the development of 
intellectual imagination and, beyond all doubt as 
well, in a creation of a moral imagination. On 
the positive side this effort of the human mind to 
rise to the conception of an ideal and perfect world 
is a distinctive mark of intellectual as well as 
moral superiority and, as we shall see, may be 
considered the -crowning point of all spiritual and 
moral effort in the functions of the human mind. 
On the other hand, it must equally be beyond 
all doubt, that the conception of the divinity, 
formed by this comparatively advanced people in 
that early stage of social evolution, corresponds 
to the more elementary and, in so far, lower, con- 
ditions of the social life prevailing in those times, 
and indicated the intellectual and moral position 
to which it was possible for them to rise. Though 
one of the most emphatic injunctions of the duty 
to God in this Commandment is directed against 
'the graven image or any likeness to things in 
Heaven or on Earth' and the worship of such, 

240 



the conception of such a spiritual Godhead is 
nevertheless so distinctly anthropomorphic, so 
clearly tied dowTi to the semblance of a human be- 
ing, however spiritual and exalted that being may 
be, that its spirituality is to a great extent tainted 
by the material, earthly and human conception, 
so as almost to become in its turn a 'graven 
image.' This anthropomorphism is still further 
increased by the specially racial and national re- 
lation which it is claimed the Godhead holds to 
the Jews. 

This element, which detracts from the pure 
spirituality of the Mosaic divinity, is still further 
emphasised to such a degree in one of the com- 
mandments that there can hardly be any intelli- 
gent orthodox believer who has not hesitated, or 
even drawn back sharply at one important pas- 
sage in the Commandments, and who, if retaining 
the passage \\dthin his accepted faith, has not 
made endeavours to expunge it from his conscious- 
ness, or its significant bearing on the main con- 
ception of the divinity. This passage deals with 
the consequences of disobedience to the first and 
second generations, and affrms that 'God is 
a jealous God, and visits the sins of the father 
upon the children unto the third and four gener- 
ation of them that hate me, and shows mercy un- 
to thousands of them that love me and keep my 
commandments.' This is not, as had often been 
maintained, merely a general statement of fact in 
the causality of things natural, and the conse- 
quence of human action in which it may no doubt 
be shown that the responsibility for evil acts is 
carried on through generations from the perpe- 
trator of the crime ; but it is embodied in the moral 
commandment, enjoined by the divinity itself, in 

241 



which justice and mercy must form the leading 
moral attributes; and whether just or unjust the 
intrusion of reward and punishment as a conse- 
quence of worship, shows a comparative lowness 
in the conception of a divine being, intelligible in 
the people who represented an early and lower 
stage of civilisation, but inadequate as the expres- 
sion of the higher moral consciousness of our own 
time. 

Furthermore, the inadequacy, as regards our- 
selves in our own time, implied in this conception 
of the divinity from the very outset, of a dis- 
tinctly national or racial bias as the God of Israel, 
though amply accounted for and justified by the 
state of civilisation prevailing at the time, must be 
repugnant to the religious sentiment and the moral 
consciousness of the mass of thoughtful people 
whose civilisation has benefited by the higher in- 
tellectual efforts of the many centuries out of 
which we have grown. It is, to say the least, 
purest anthropomorphism, and, in so far, directly 
opposed to any spiritual conception of a divine 
ideal. 

I cannot here enter into a discussion of the 
exact meaning of the third Commandment, which 
enjoins that we shall not use the name of the Lord 
in vain. How far this has a direct theological or 
ritual significance, and is in so far merely an en- 
largement of the preceding commandment, or how 
far it must be taken in connection with the Ninth 
Commandment, which would give it a distinctly 
human and social significance, I do not, and need 
not, venture to determine. If it be the latter, and 
be mainly concerned with the making of 
solemn asseveration by associating it with the 
name of the divinity, such as is the case in the 

242 



taking of an oath, it might be considered under 
the heading of our duty to truth. But, intrinsically 
and by the actual practice in Jewish and Christ- 
ian life, it seems to me to be rather concerned with 
the need of keeping the divinity and all that con- 
cerns man's relations to God high and pure in 
practice, so that the God-head in man's thought 
and speech should not be lowered and blunted by 
frivolous use and abuse. 

2. The duty to our self, which forms so impor- 
tant a part of an ethical code, is practically only 
represented by one commandment and in one very 
limited sphere. It is, moreover, based upon so in- 
adequate a theological reason, and has become 
so thoroughly formalised by a merely ritual con- 
ception, that its moral weight and significance 
have become weakened, if not lost. It is needless 
to say that for us the injunction to keep a day of 
rest, based upon the fact that God created the uni- 
verse in six days, cannot be valid. Nor -can the 
insistence upon one day, and that day definitely 
fixed — however convenient and suggestive the as- 
sociation with astronomical and chronological 
division may make it — be considered by us as es- 
sential to a moral conception of the duty to our 
self. Still less is this moral aspect impressed up- 
on us by the dead formalism which later Jewish, 
as well as Christian, ritual impressed upon this 
chronological selection. The racial and ritual for- 
malism, to which Jewish practice led in later 
years, is most strikingly illustrated by the laws 
enacted by orthodox Judaism concerning the keep- 
ing of the Sabbath. From sunset on Friday even- 
ing to sunset on Saturday evening the strictly ob- 
servant Jew was not, and is not, allowed to do 
any manner of work, and this, in the Command- 

243 



ment, is even extended beyond the immediate 
family to the servants and the domestic animals, 
as well as to 'the stranger within thy gate.' 

Thus orthodox Jewish families even did, and 
still do, their cooking before the advent of the 
Sabbath; they dare not light their lamps, or ex- 
tinguish them, or open a letter, or perform most 
of the ordinary functions which modern life brings 
with it. But, on the other hand, when the lamp 
be lit or extinguished on the Sabbath, they call 
in some 'Gentile' to perform this act for them. 
Such an action can only be based on one of two 
alternatives. Either these commandments, and 
in consequence the favour of the divinity, are 
stri-etly limited to the Jewish race and do not apply 
to the rest of mankind, or, if they do, the ortho- 
dox Jew does not concern himself with the sin 
of his non-Jewish neighbor and the consequent 
disfavour brought upon him in the eyes of his 
divinity. Either of these consequences must be 
revolting to the moral consciousness of civilised 
and right-thinking man, and are, in so far, grossly 
immoral. 

Still, the undeniable and most important fact 
remains: that this Fourth Commandment, which 
impresses upon us the duty to our self in provid- 
ing for that refreshment and reinvigoration of 
our physical and metal powers, does recognise 
such a duty to our self. It recognises and directly 
provides for the maintenance of bodily health as 
a sacred duty on the part of man, and, in so far, 
elevates physical life and the cult of the body 
into higher moral spheres. The same applies to 
our mental life, in which the Commandment count-' 
eracts the abnormal and unhealthy, as well as ex- 
clusive, development of the sense of duty in work, 

244 



which suppresses all instincts towards recreation 
and the claims of the more passive and receptive 
side of our mental life. In so far this command- 
ment is directly opposed to the ascetic ideal. Im- 
portant as we may consider the inclusion of such 
a conomandment into the decalogue at this early 
date, we now must feel that it is not an adequate 
exposition of such duties in a full codification of 
moral laws to apply to the actual needs of our 
advanced life. The consideration of the duty to 
our self developed by means of a searching and 
truthful enquiry into its relative -claims, forms 
one of the most important parts of our moral re- 
quirements. 

3. We now come to the third division of ethical 
injunction as conveyed by the Ten Command- 
ments, which deals with man's relation to his 
fellow men. Social Morality. 

Beginning at the more proximate and intimate 
sphere, in the relation of the individual to the 
family, it naturally puts as a foremost injunction! 
the duty of children to parents. To honour one's 
father and mother is an ethical and social law 
whi'ch has been valid in all times since man evolved 
the institution of the family. The rightness of 
the family being admitted, the desirability and 
even the necessity of all that can be summarised 
under the injunction to 'honour' the heads of the 
family, needs no further comment or support. 
Where the family is no longer recognised as a 
social or ethical unit, indispensable to the advance- 
ment of society as a whole, such a commandment 
would lose much of its absolutely binding power 
and of its moral validity. That the family is and, 
as far as we can project our thoughts, ought to be, 
an essential unit of civilised society I am firmly 

245 



convinced. But even if this were not admitted, it 
cannot be doubted, that the moral habit of man, as 
well as the discipline attached to it, of showing 
graditude, or at least deference and considera- 
tion, to father and mother, and, by implication as 
well, to the aged, on the part of the young, are 
elements that can never be eliminated from the 
development of higher morality in social beings 
in whom the moral sense is at all elevated and re- 
fined. 

On the other hand, the complete silence as re- 
gards any duties which parents owe to their chil- 
dren, duties varying with the different ages 
which they attain, and the relations which these 
hold to the family and the world outside, may 
give an appearance of incompleteness and one- 
sidedness which might produ-ce, if not justify, 
opposition to the absoluteness of this command- 
ment. Moreover, the regulation of other family 
relations is an ethical problem of most practical 
import to the establishment of valid and efficient 
social ethics. Be it that some doubt may in our 
times be felt by many as regards the justification 
of the family as an essential, or at least an im- 
portant, element in social organisation, or be it 
merely from the tendency towards self-indulgence 
or the gradual atrophy of all sense of duty among 
us, there are many thoughtful people devoid of 
higher ethical principles, who completely deny the 
constraining authority of this Fifth command- 
ment. We have all heard it put bluntly that, 
'We were in no way responsible for being put into 
the world and, having no say in the matter, the 
responsibility rests with the parents, and with 
them the responsibility to look after their chil- 
dren; so, on that account, there is no debt 

246 



of gratitude.' Quite apart from the sober, if not 
jejeune, consideration of the need for the disci- 
plinary organisation of any household correspond- 
ing to that of any other organisation in which 
people must live together and regulate all aspects 
of life, and therefore require graduation of au- 
thority and discipline the continuous manifesta- 
tion of affection and of self-abnegation on the 
part of normal parents, at least throughout the 
years measured by the childhood of their off- 
spring, the sacriftce necessarily implied by those 
who have children as compared to those who have 
none, ought to appeal to the sense of justice and 
fair play, and in so far call for gratitude and 
consideration, if not for more, on the part of the 
children. Moreover, who would deny that in the, 
sane development of a human soul, correspond- 
ing to the healthy development of a human body, 
the growth and refinement of affection and of the 
sense of reverence form an integral part to the or- 
ganic -completeness and social and moral fitness of 
such a soul. A child brought up without any 
sense of filial affection, of gratitude, or of rever- 
ence, is morally incomplete, if not crippled and 
monstrous. In so far this commandment will ever 
remain a most important element in every moral 
code. What must, however, estrange, if not shock, 
the advanced moral sense of modern man is the 
passage accompanying this injunction and sup- 
porting it : ' That thy days may be long in the land 
w^hich the Lord thy God giveth thee.' Whatever 
meaning be attributed to this passage, it cannot 
be denied, that it is meant to convey consequent 
reward to those who follow this commandment. 
Though this be quite intelligible in a compara- 
tively early stage of social and ethical evolution, 

247 



for a people for whom these cominandments were 
promulgated, they cannot appeal to the more ad- 
vanced and refined moral sense of those who live 
in our age. 

The four following commandments are funda- 
mental to the organisation of society and have 
since had binding authority upon civilised com- 
munities in all ages, applying even to our own 
times. As has already been said above, their 
validity is so unquestioned that with us they no 
longer form a part of our ethical code because they 
are embodied in our laws; and we thus need not 
include them in our ethical cons-ciousness of which 
they form an admitted sub-stratum. The last of 
these four, enjoining that 'Thou shalt not bear 
false witness against thy neighbour,' pronounces 
the importance of truth as affecting the most 
apparent and tangible relations of social life in 
which the infringement of such a commandment 
brings most manifest and evil results. The 
duty to truth is here defined and limited to 
the 'bearing of false witness against thy neigh- 
bour.' It is this commandment, perhaps taken 
in conjunction with the third commandment, 
\vhich is concerned with truth. It cannot be ir- 
teverential and unreasonable to express surprise 
that, in the definite and succinct form in which the 
preceding commandments deal with human life 
and human property, the commandment did not 
read simply *Thou shalt not lie.' The abstra-ct 
and absolute duty to truth is an ethical injunction 
which would and must form the corner stone of 
the ethics of modern man — truth in itself and 
quite apart from its restricted practical applica- 
tion to those actions which might directly injure 
our neighbors. But we cannot expect that in those 

248 



early stages of social evolution this height of 
ethical development should have been attained. 

But the last commandment enters more fully in- 
to actual social relations, and does not only mani- 
fest deep knowledge of human nature and of 
human life, but has also revealed with deep in- 
sight one of the very fountain-heads of evil in 
the social intercourse between men. It is more 
purely ethi-cal than almost any of the other com- 
mandments, in the sense that it rises above the 
constraining power of law and points to the ethical 
process within the very heart of man and the 
secret founts whence action flows. It is in- 
tended to counteract the sinister effects of jeal- 
ousy and envy, from which hatred and malice, and 
perhaps most of the evils whi-ch man inflicts upon 
man, are derived. The searching importance at- 
tached to this last and most comprehensive of 
moral commandments is shown by the enumera- 
tion of all the chief groups of possessions reflect- 
ing the life of the day, from home and wife even 
to the domestic animals in man's possession. In 
so far this commandment may be considered the 
very first guide and landmark to the ethical activi- 
ties of thinking man for all ages to come. 



249 



CHAPTER III 

The Teaching of Christ 

Though we have seen that most of the Ten 
Commandments have, in the advancement of hu- 
man society, since the early date of their tabula- 
tion been embodied in what we call law in contra- 
distinction to ethics, and though we feel that the 
conception of the Godhead and the Command- 
ments emanating from such a conception are in- 
adequate to the spiritual needs of modem man; 
though we furthermore feel that the conmiand- 
ment which refers to the duty to ourselves does 
not adequately serve as a guide for the moral 
consciousness of modern man ; and though, finally, 
while recognising the supreme moral importance 
of the last commandment, counteracting our un- 
social instincts in covetousness we must recognize 
that the mere formulation of this commandment 
is not enough to act as an efficient moral guide in 
the modern conditions of life. In spite of these 
natural, and even necessary, limitations, we must 
feel convinced with equal strength that the sum- 
mary and total influence of the Mosaic command- 
ments for the Jewish people of that day and for 
the whole civilised world ever since, has been the 
clear recognition of the sense of duty and justice 
in man as a cornerstone to the whole structure of 
human morals and human conduct. This is one 
of the greatest achievements in the history of 
mankind. This sense of duty and sense of justice 
must be trained in man, so that he should manifest 

250 



his direct humanity, and they cannot be dispensed 
with even in Nietzsche's ideal of the superman — 
a moral postulate to which the conduct of every 
man must be subordinated. The Will to Live, the 
following of the natural instincts, can be no guide 
to man as he is, and still less to man as we must 
recognise that he ouglit to be — that is the ideal of 
man, the superman. To follow the natural instincts 
consistently and logically must lead either to one 
of two alternative results, namely, to the mere 
ruminating or bovine state of complete physical 
health and negative mental peace, perhaps to the 
Nirvana which Schopenhauer borrowed from 
Buddhism ; or to the war of all against all, inter- 
necine conflict, which the upholders of the con- 
tract social recognised as the necessary prelimi- 
nary condition out of which orderly society grew. 
Now the only power which can be applied to the 
guidance and regulations of instincts and pas- 
sions is ultimately Reason. Reason is by its very 
nature outside and above instincts, the great 
forces which blindly and often ruthlessly make 
for self-preservation and self-advancement. It 
must thus permeate the instinctive passions and 
give a new direction to them. This implies an out- 
going, a centrifugal current of the mind, which 
the Greeks characterized by the term Trpo^pcov, 
and for which we can find no better term than that 
of altruism. It means the subjugation and regu- 
lation of each instinct, however much we may re- 
gard the justice of its claims and not consider the 
instinct in itself bad because it is natural. This 
regulation of our instincts must be in conformity 
with an idea which human reason (than which we 
can discover no better guide) establishes and jus- 
tifies. 

251 



Moreover, such guiding ethical ideas cannot, 
and need not, be consciously appealed to nor ap- 
plied to every definite act on the part of man, in- 
terrupting and weakening, if not wholly dissolv- 
ing the strength and spontaneity of action and of 
will, by their intercession : but they must by edu- 
cation and practice ending in habit, be trans- 
formed into emotional states which, in what we 
may call the moral sense or taste, or even man- 
ners, modify our passions, our emotive forces and 
turn them into the ethical and social channels 
regulated by these guiding ideas sanctioned by 
Reason. They must create what the Greeks 
called ethos and produce in man what we call his 
^'character." I endeavored to show the impor- 
tance of the proper balance between this relation 
of emotion and intellect in man in an essay pub- 
lished many years ago^ 

To make such a moral and social ethos effective 
is the task of all ethical education, whether sup- 
plied in the home, the school or by life itself. The 
most efficient focus for such education and for the 
discipline which favours or produces such ulti- 
mate results is the home. It is here that the con- 
ditions of life, in which individuals are thrown 
together constantly and continuously with strong 
ties of affection and duty always impressed upon 
them and that the curbing of the selfish instincts, 
are from the earliest age, by daily repercussion, 
produced and developed. Of itself and in itself this 
effect of family life, intimate and penetrating and 
all pervasive within the home, is one of the most 
efficient and important, if not the chief, justifica- 
tion for the existence of the family within each 



(1) The Balance of Emotion and Intellect, London, Kegan 
Paul & Co., 1878. 

252 



larger social body or group. No institution or 
regulation of social life that exists, or none that 
can be devised and proposed, can replace this. 
Beginning with the relation of children to parents, 
as already laid down in the Fifth Commandment, 
it teaches the young the important discipline of 
learning to obey; and this quality itself, even 
when it is entirely dominated by the recognition 
of what is just and best as the rational justifica- 
tion of obedience, is one of the most important 
human qualities which must be developed in every 
perfect being as a habit and an emotional state. 
Even the superman — and not only tlie obeying 
ones, whom Nietzsche groups round the genius or 
superman — is not, and can never be, a realisation 
of highest human qualities and forces unless he 
possesses this characteristic. For it will be 
through self-discipline and obedience that he will 
be enabled to curb and to subdue all those in- 
stincts and passions (perhaps even those of pity 
and love) in order that he should mould his life 
towards the great purpose which as a superman 
he holds before himself. 

Perhaps more than any other aspect of contem- 
porary social ethics, is the neglect of this develop- 
ment of discipline and the sense of duty which is 
the most noticeable feature in the moral disease 
from which we are suffering; and the work of 
Lord Meath and his supporters in founding the 
''Duty and Discipline" movement among us is 
amply justified in fact. Amid all the undoubted 
material and moral evils produced by this terrible 
war, we may be comforted in recognising that, to 
a certain degree— though not to the extent which 
some warlike enthusiasts fondly hope — the sense 
of national duty and discipline has been aroused 

253 



throughout the country, if not the world, in spite 
of the lowness of ideals and the unspeakable bare- 
ness of moral practice which every day and every 
hour and in every aspect the war itself produces 
and impresses upon the minds of all the combat- 
ants, as well as the non-combatant portion of 
every nation. 

Admirable as in many directions the organisa- 
tion of our public schools and the life among the 
pupils may be, the conditions of such life are still 
regulated too exclusively from the point of view 
of the boy-community itself, and, though it estab- 
lishes its own discipline (not in every respect on 
grounds which justice or wisdom will always 
ratify), it can in no way replace the constant 
curbing of selfish instincts, self-indulgence or de- 
velop obedience to more unselfish purposes, which 
the life in a family circle provides. Without this 
training, afforded from the earliest youth up- 
wards by family life, where the performance of 
duties and services are so constantly required by 
members of the family as to create an emotional 
state or a habit, the discipline of curbing selfish 
instincts can never be effectively impressed. The 
Montessori system fails in this respect in not de- 
veloping duty, though no doubt excellent in pro- 
ducing love for things taught. 

Without it there is produced the imperfect hu- 
man being, the monstrous moral and social crip- 
ple whom we call the egoist. He is not only es- 
sentially unlovable, but he becomes socially im- 
possible, even unjust to himself as well as to oth- 
ers, and hence less likely to be normally happy. 
While deficient in the power of self-control, self- 
detachment and positive self-repression in dealing 
with ideas or general duties, he is less efficient in 

254 



performing the ordinary impersonal tasks of life 
self-imposed or imposed by circmnstances. From 
an almost physiological poini of view he is bound 
to become abnormal, if not pathological. The mi- 
checked realisation of selfish instincts inevitably 
leads to what, from a pathological point of view 
is technically called hysteria or, as applied to 
physical consciousness, hypochondriasis.^ If, as 
a conscious disciple of Nietzsche's or as an un- 
conscious worshipper of the Will to Live or the 
Will to Power, he thinks that he has discovered 
in himself the elements which produced a Caesar, 
a Napoleon, or a Wagner, he becomes one of that 
numerous breed of malignant social cripples who 
generally bring disaster upon themselves. They 
also produce discord and unhappiness in all their 
relations of human life, because they think that 
all things and the wills and interests of all their 
fellow men ought justly to be subordinated to 
the advancement of their own little selves, or 
the great causes with which they have, by a fond, 
though none the less grotesque, illusion identified 
their own lives and their own interests. Be- 
side this pronounced and sometimes pathological 
development of the egotists, who has not learnt 
by earlier and by continuous practice in duties 
from which he cannot escape, to curb his will 
and his insincts, the experienced observer of 
life must realise the loss incurred for such moral 
training without the institution of marriage and 
of the family. He may often observe that 
amongst his unmarried acquaintances, the typical 
"old bachelor" and **old maid" and even in the 
happily married childless couples who have de- 



(1) George Meredith's great satire of the Egoist, Mr. Max- 
well's novel "In Cotton Wool" illustrate forcibly this patho- 
logical development. 

255 



veloped a strong, though limited, affection for one 
another, the paucity in opportunities for con- 
tinuous practice in actual unselfish discipline 
which family life affords, not only diminishes 
their adaptability and pliancy to meet the needs, 
even impersonal needs, of daily activity in com- 
plex social life ; but also, in so far, weakens their 
general power of complete self-detachment in any 
given task, and is likely to accentuate abnormal 
personal idiosyncracy, if not eccentricity. 

Quite apart from the great question of sexual 
love and its rational and social regulation — upon 
which I do not wish ito enter here — the justifica- 
tion, nay, the essential necessity, of the institution 
of the family and of marriage are entirely estab- 
lished by this aspect of ultimate social ethics, both 
as regards the normal development of the indi- 
vidual man as such, as well as the best development 
of social groups and society as a whole. The 
great Eros (love in its widest acceptation) which 
is and will ever remain the centrifugal or emo- 
tional force in humanity and in the world, is ac- 
tually and continuously developed and streng»th- 
ened, if not produced, by conditions which are 
primarily found in filial relations and in the 
family. This central power of the soul strength- 
ens the emotionality of man in an altruistic di- 
rection, or at least controls the directly selfish 
impulses ; and this growth and power of love, this 
increase of cardiac vitality and passion, make a 
man capable of doing great things and of ulti- 
mately becoming a superman or of contributing 
to his development. The superman is above all 
the man with the biggesit heart, the strongest ca- 
pacity for loving, and the greatest power of con- 
trolling his forceful and pliant affections in any 

256 



direction which his reason and its ultimate ideals 
may dictate. This love is, if not the only factor, 
certainly one of the essential ones in the develop- 
ment of a great human being trained and 
strengthened in the family and concentrated in 
personal and individual affection, it rises beyond 
these to embrace further spheres, extending be- 
yond the community to the wider country in the 
form of patriotism, and beyond this to the love 
of man as such the love of humanity which, above 
all other powers, makes man a true human being. 

It is especially in two aspects that Christianity 
supplements Judaism and marks an ethical ad- 
vance, an upward step, towards the ultimate 
ideals of the human species. Beyond the sense of 
justice and of duty, the central teaching of Christ 
and (the very spirit of Christianity in its purest 
and noblest form is this all-prevading spirit of 
love. And, together with the duty towards God 
and family and nation and the love of them, the 
spirit of Christ's teaching impresses the whole 
of mankind and spurns the narrower limits of 
racial preference. It is no doubt untrue and un- 
fair to Judaism to maintain, or even to imagine, 
that its teaching did not inculcate love and pity, 
and tliat it excluded from the purview of our 
duties and our feelings 'the stranger within our 
gates or even beyond our gates.' Hillel may have 
anticipated the golden rule of ' doing unto others 
as we would they should unto us,' and many pass- 
ages may be found in Jewish moral teachings 
which distinctly imply that our feelings and duties 
are not to be bounded by the family or the race. 
But there cannot be any doubt that, in this 
natural process of ethical evolution. Mosaic ethics 
were supplemented and advanced by 'the clear and 

257 



emphatic insistence upon the love of man, upon 
pity and sympathy with him: and that the con- 
ception of this relation to man was widened out 
far beyond the bounds of race and even included 
the enemies of the Jewish people, and the enemy 
of the individual. On the other hand, it can also 
not be denied that, however much may be said of 
the social and ethical attitude of the Jewish 
people as extending beyond their racial limita- 
tion, in the eyes of their God, as well as in their 
popular beliefs some preferential position was as- 
signed to the people of Israel ; and that in so far 
this racial or nationalistic attitude counteracted 
the wider ideals of human love contained in 
Christ's teaching. The true teachings of Christ 
will always thus be identified with the opposition 
to the limitations imposed by race or nationality 
upon man's duties towards mankind and his af- 
fedtion for man as his brother.^ 

No part of Christ's teaching conveys more 
clearly and more definitely and with the true ring 
of authenticity this great moral achievement, than 
the Sermon on the Mount. Whatever the results 
of modem theological criticism may be as to the 
direct authorship of this sermon, its date and 

(1) It is one of the ironies of history, one of the many his- 
torical absurdities in human profession as contrasted with 
human action, that during the controversies and passions group- 
ing around the Dreyfus case in France — a more isolated and 
attenuated instance of so-called Christian persecution of their 
fellow-men of the race which produced Christ — the anti- 
Dreyfusards, representing the claims and interests of the church, 
should have summarised their chief antagonism against the 
Jews by the term of approbrium 'sans-patrics.' Christ himself 
was the greatest of all sans-pa tries in respect of urging the 
claims of a wider humanity; while, on the other hand, it can 
be noted even in the present war — in spite of the attempted 
disingenuous identification of international finance with the 
whole Jewish race — that, fighting with patriotic zeal in every 
one of the opposing armies, and often protagonists in urging the 
political claims of each of the several contending nations, Jews 
are foremost in patriotic ardour. 

258 



composition and relation to the other parts of the 
New Tesftament and the degree of its authenticity, 
the fact remains : that this Sermon on the Mount 
will ever stand forth as a great monument in the 
ethical and religious teaching of mankind. It 
definitely marks the grea(t step in ethical develop- 
ment, in the recognition of love and charity, not 
only as a ruling principle in the relations of man 
to man, but also as a power within man which ad- 
vances him in his perfectability without which no 
ideal of a human being can be conceived. 

It is thus this central doctrine of love with 
which the Sermon on the Mount is intended to 
supplement the Mosaic commandments: but, at 
the same time, it must be beyond all doubt to any 
fairminded student of that sermon, that it is con- 
sciously directed in opposition to the process of 
formalisation which took the life and spirit out 
of the old established moral laws and which no 
longer responded to the new needs created by the 
advance of the later generations and the newer 
conditions of life. It emphatically implies the 
insufficiency of the earlier moral code to respond 
to all these new conditons. Even in Christ 's time 
many of these moral commandments had passed 
into what we call law, and could be taken for 
granted. Mere conformity to them was not 
enough to elevate the moral standards of the in- 
dividual and to comply with the social needs of 
the community. Chrisft did not mean to destroy 
these accepted laws, but to develop them still fur- 
ther. 'Think not that I am come to destroy the 
law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, 
but to fulfil. ' On the other hand the mere formal 
compliance with the old laws was not enough. It 
could only satisfy the formalists whom he called 

259 



Scribes and Pharisees. ' For I say unto you, that 
except your righteousness shall exceed the right- 
eousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in 
no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. ' ' Thou 
shalt not kill' was not enough to counteract the 
evil in the social feelings of man to man; he en- 
joined that we must go deeper down into our feel- 
ings itowards our fellow men for the seat of the 
evil, and we must not kill their self-respect or 
wound their feelings. 'Ye have heard that it was 
said by them of old time. Thou shalt not kill ; and 
whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the 
judgment, but I say unto you, that whosoever is 
angry with his brother without a cause shall be in 
danger of the judgment : and whosoever shall say 
to his brother, Kaca, shall be in danger of the 
council : but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall 
be in danger of hell fire.' So, too, the Seventh 
Commandment did not adequately respond to the 
higher moral consciousness ; * Ye have heard that 
it was said by them of old time. Thou shalt not 
commit adultery: but I say unto you, thaJt who- 
soever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath 
committed adultery with her already in his 
heart.' And thus what was merely recognised as 
illegal is carried still further into the ethical 
sphere of (the motive which leads to the illegal 
deed. 

He carries this moral inwardness, this further 
refinement and development of the moral sense, 
still deeper when he definitely condemns the for- 
malism in those who merely clung to restricted 
and outwardly manifest laws and did not respond 
to the higher ethical needs. 'Take heed that ye 
do not your alms before men, to be seen of them : 
otherwise ye have no reward of your Father 

260 



which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest 
thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, 
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the 
streets, that they may have glory of men. But 
when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know 
what thy right hand doeth * * *. And when thou 
prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are : 
for they love to pray standing in the synagogues 
and in the corners of the streets, that they may be 
seen of men * * *. But thou, when thou prayest, 
enter into thy closet, and when thou has shut thy 
door, pray to thy Father * * *. ' 

But, above all, he wishes to oppose whatever 
forces may counteract the positive love of one's 
fellow men. These forces are the spirit of enmity 
and the spirit of hate and vengeance. This is im- 
pressed with the greatest strength, far beyond the 
confines of mere justice. Justice is, if not super- 
seded by love, supplemented as far as man 's heart 
goes by love which is to rule there. 'Judge not,, 
that ye be not judged. ' And there is added to it 
the beautiful warning against selfishness which 
distorts the truthful judgment of other claims, in 
the 'beholding of the mote that is in thy brother's, 
eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine 
oMTi eye.' Justice can in no way destroy the 
spirit and the demand of human love : 'An eye for 
an eye, and a tooth for a tooth' cannot destroy the 
claims of charity: and there follow the sublime 
words that 'whosoever shall smite thee on thy 
right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if 
any man will sue thee at the law, and take away 
thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. ' 

He combats chiefly the spirit of hatred and re- 
venge : and the spirit of love is not to be confined 
to your neighbor, but is to be extended even to 

261 



your enemies : ' Ye have heard that it hath been 
said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine 
enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, 
bless them that curse you, do good to them that 
hate you, and pray for them which despitefuUy 
use you, and persecute you. ' 

The purity and inwardness of his moral teach- 
ing is shown in his opposition to mere outward 
semblance and conformity. 'Moreover when ye 
fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad counten- 
ance : for they disfigure their faces, that they may 
appear unto men to fast.' * * * 'But thou, when 
thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face ; 
that thou appear not unto men to fast * * * / 

Throughout this exalted sermon, which estab- 
lishes for all time the dominant position of love as 
the chief factor in human relationship and in eth- 
ics, there is also established for man the ideal of 
inner moral purity irrespective of outer manfesta- 
tion and recognition. But, at the same time, we 
must recognise — as has before this been recog- 
nised by so many impartial critics — that the ser- 
mon is essentially modified, if not directly and 
completely evoked by, the character of the audi- 
ence whom Christ is addressing : and by the satis- 
faction of that very impulse of charity in him to 
comfort and console these fellow beings so much 
in need of comfort and consolation, the poor and 
the suffering. It is these whom he wishes to up- 
lift. To this impulse are to be ascribed the open- 
ing paragraphs no<t only meant to console, but 
even to exalt the position of those who are bowed 
down and whose worldly fate is that of the un- 
favoured by fortune : 

'Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is 



262 



the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that 
mourn : for (they shall be comforted. 

Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the 
earth. 

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst 
after righteousness : for they shall be filled. 

Blessed are the merciful : for they shall obtain 
mercy. 

Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see 
God. 

Blessed are the peacemakers : for they shall be 
called the children of God. 

Blessed are they which are persecuted for right- 
eousness sake : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and 
persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil 
against you falsely, for my sake. 

Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is 
your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they 
the prophets which were before you. 

Ye are the salt of the earth : but if the salt have 
lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It 
is henceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, 
and to be trodden under foot of men. 

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set 
on an hill cannot be hid. ' 

The kingdom of heaven is to belong to those 
who are poor both in material wealth and in 
spirit, not to the mighty and the prosperous and 
the leaders of intelligence. 

In his enthusiasm for the lowly life and his op- 
position to worldly prosperity, power and riches, 
he is carried away to make a positive virtue of the 
life which does not bring these; and his injunc- 
tion is that one should spurn all effort which leads 
to such prosperity and success, invoking as an ex- 

263 



ample the life of nature and the organic beings de- 
void of intelligence, imagination, forethought, and 
after-thought. It is the longing of the roman- 
ticists driven by opposition to the degeneracy of 
the dominant forms of civilisation in their age to 
the cry of * ' back to nature ' ' and to the simplicity, 
even unintelligence, of such natural life : 

'Lay not uip for yourselves treasures upon 
earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and 
where thieves break through and steal: 

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, 
where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and 
where thieves do not break through nor steal : 

For where your treasure is, there will your 
heart be also. 

The light of the body is the eye : if therefore 
thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full 
of light. 

But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall 
be full lof darkness. If therefore the light that 
is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness ! 

No man can serve two masters : for either he 
will hate the one, and love the other: or else he 
will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye 
cannot serve God and mammon. 

Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for 
yoTir life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall 
drink : nor yet for your body, what ye shall put 
on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body 
than raiment ? 

Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow not, 
neither do they reap, nor gather into bams, yet 
your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not 
much better than they? 

Which of you by taking thought can add one 
cubit unito his stature? 

And why take ye thought for raiment? Con- 



264 



sider the lilies of the field, how they grow : they 
loil not, neither do they spin : 

And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in 
all his gloTy was not arrayed like one of these. 

Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the 
field, which today is, and to-morrow is cast into 
the oven, shall he not much more clothe you 
ye of little faith? 

Therefore take no thought, saying, what shall 
we eat? or, what shall we drink? or, wherewith- 
al shall we be clothed ? 

For after all these things do the Gentiles seek : 
for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have 
need of all these things. 

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his 
righteousness ; and all these things shall be added 
unto you. 

Take therefore no thought for the morrow : for 
the morrow shall take thought for the things of 
itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. ' 



265 



CHAPTER IV 

The Need for Ethicai, Evolution Implied in 
THE Teachings of Christ. Plato 

It is clear that this position in social ethics is 
directly at variance with the moral consciousness 
of our own age and of almost all the ages repre- 
senting higher civilisation in the past. For, 
whether we believe in the right of property or not, 
whether we admit the doctrine of absolute social- 
ism and collectivism or of unalloyed individualism 
and laissez faire, the economical standards obtain- 
ing in the w^orld and the conception of labour which 
we hold is that they produce the common measure 
of value in the form of wealth individually or col- 
lectively, and that such labour and such effort can- 
not be considered bad, and must be recognised by 
the approval of society and the corresponding re- 
ward w^hich they received? From every point of 
view it must be admitted that competence, in- 
dustry and thrift are social, as well as individual 
virtues. And though society must guard against 
the abuses of certain immoral and unjust develop- 
ments in definite directions, it must equally recog- 
nise the virtue of competence, industry, thrift and 
forethought. At all events, it cannot extol those 
qualities in man and the results arising out of 
them which would directly produce their contra- 
ries. 

It is against this aspect of Christian ethics that 
so many thinkers and writers have protested, and 
that, in the most violent and uncompromising 

266 



form, Nietzsche has hurled his powerful rhetoric 
and fiery invective. The glorification of the in- 
competent and of the mentally deficient, leading 
to the survival of the unfittest, has led him to 
maintain that Christianity had produced the mor- 
als for slaves. Still more is this the case in the 
attitude which in other parts of the New Testa- 
ment, and as a leading feature of Christian ethics, 
is maintained towards the physical life of man, the 
cult of the body, the natural instinct towards phys- 
ical self-preservation. Not only Nietzsche, but the 
common consciousness of modern man, revolts 
against the degradation of the body, and upholds 
its rights and claims to intelligent cultivation; 
they almost establish the sanctity of the body. The 
natural instincts are in themselves not bad but 
good; their claims are just, provided they are 
maintained in due and moral organic proportion. 
No instinct is of itself bad, as no earth is unclean ; 
it only becomes dirt when ' out of place. ' Instincts 
must be controlled and must even be repressed in 
accordance with the claims of other instincts, the 
social and moral ones. In so far the eugenistic 
movement is highly moral ; and we are all endeav- 
oring to combat physical degeneration However 
sincere and fervid our sympathies and our conse- 
quent actions in various directions with regard to 
the mass of the people, "the labouring classes," 
the proletariat, may be, it is definitely directed to- 
wards the betterment of their condition ; and this 
betterment implies that we recognise and strive 
for the best for man, individual and collective. 
No champion of the proletariat would venture to 
draw the logical conclusion of the exaltation of 
the conditions of life which have produced the 
lowly, the miserable, and degraded type of indi- 

267 



vidual out of which it is composed, and would 
maintain that the weak, inefficient and unrefined 
are higher and better than the strong, the power- 
ful, the intellectually and morally refined. 

Christ's sermon on the Mount and His other 
teiachings were evoked to meet the formalised 
abuses of inefficient moral standards prevailing in 
His day, and of consoling and uplifting those who 
were bowed down by unjust social conditions and 
by adversity. And the justification and eternal 
fitness of such a divine impulse was the spirit of 
true humanity, of love and charity, which He has 
brought into the moral consciousness of man as an 
essential element of His humanness for all times. 
Marking, as it does, an advance in ethical evolu- 
tion over the older moral code of Moses, it con- 
firms the unquestionable belief in us, that the 
evolution of man would be retarded or directly 
thwarted if later ages, with essentially different 
social conditions, needs and aspirations, grounded 
upon centuries of varying physical conditions and 
of civilisation, did not require supplementing and 
modification in order adequately to respond to 
the social needs of society. It still further im- 
presses upon us the convicition, by the very in- 
fluence which for so many centuries Christ's 
teaching has exercised upon the world, of the 
need, the absolute necessity, for the clear and ade- 
quate and effective formulation of the moral 
standards for successive ages, so that each age 
should become clearly conscious of its own ethical 
forces and, allowing them by conscious interaction 
to penetrate effectively the conduct of individual 
and collective human life, to prepare each peri- 
odic group in this social evolution for the progres- 
sive establishment of ethical conceptions which 

268 



would favor the advance of civilisation and make 
of future man and of future society what to their 
predecessors would have appeared as the super- 
man and the society of supermen. 

But the adequate expression of the moral cons- 
ciousness of an age or a people will, from the very 
nature of the task, always be most difficult of re- 
alisation. To the difficulties of clear apprehen- 
sion of an intellectual world so delicate and com- 
plex, and still more of clear and convincing ex- 
pression by means of language must not be added 
the difficulties inherent in a code destined for 
people of entirely different origin, living under 
physical conditions so varied, and representing 
social and intellectual life so far removed from 
that of later ages. Moreover, their immediate 
dependence upon, and interpenetration with, re- 
ligious conceptions and doctrines, (to which, in the 
actual form and in the true meaning which they 
had for these alien people of by gone days, so 
many of us cannot subscribe and which we even 
disbelieve — ) make the task still more difficult. 
The expression of the moral consciousness in the 
highly complex conditions of modern life, and the 
difficulty of its just and ready application to the 
infinitely multiform needs of daily routine, pre- 
sent of themselves so arduous and illusive a task 
that a translation into less familiar regions of 
thought essentially counteracts their effective- 
ness. Such a clear codification of the ethical 
consciousness of each age cannot therefore be 
achieved by a translation into the mystical langu- 
age of bygone ages or thoughts. It must in every 
instance be tested by the actualities of life ; as its 
own recognition and establishment must arise out 
of the most thorough, unbiased and concentrated 

269 



study of the actual conditions of such life. In so 
far it must be absolutely rational: it must be 
based on empirical induction, strengthened by the 
test of logic ; and cannot be directly subordinated 
to the mystical, and often illogical, conditions of 
purely religious doctrine. Moreover, as I main- 
tained before, the practical, sober, almost oppor- 
tunistic, nature of such social laws, when inter- 
fused with our higher religious aspirations and 
our material daily wants and activities, can only 
tend to rob the religious consciousness and life of 
its essentially emotional and mystically supranat- 
ural elements, which are inseparable from the 
truly religious spirit. Nor must such clear and 
universally convincing expression of the moral 
consciousness of each age be put in the literary 
form of involved and suggestive maxims. Such 
vaguer generalisations, capable of varied inter- 
pretation, as is given by the oriental garb in which 
Nietzsche has transferred his principles of indi- 
vidual and social ethics to the lips of Zarathustra, 
rob his moral teaching of practical effectiveness. 
The first task in this great ethical need of ours 
is the establishment of the true facts and data of 
life, individual and collective, out of which the 
ethical consciousness of the age grows and to the 
needs of which it is to respond. The historical 
and inductive methods, carried on in their purity 
and severity, are to establish the facts of social 
evolution and the moral needs which it involves 
for man to produce a harmonious adaptation of his 
life to the physical and social conditions in which 
he lives. But, having recognised this evolution, 
his ethical task does not end there ; he must not 
be a slave to Fatalistic Evolutionism, which can- 
not apply to the intelligent world, to the ethical 

270 



and social needs of the ' social animal. ' He must 
establish Conscious Evolution, and must crown 
his sober, and yet noble, induction by the applica- 
tion of his deductive faculties, his ideal imagina- 
tion. Here lies the domain, the powerful and 
just domain, of man's imagination which, what- 
ever evidence the eminently successful enquiries 
of the great biologists in our age may have estab- 
lished, remains the distinctive power differentiat- 
ing man from the rest of the organic world, ani- 
mal and vegetable. 

Our sober and conscientious induction estab- 
lishes the facts with regard to our actions and 
their motives and their relation to human society 
and its needs ; our imagination shows us for every 
act and its motive an ideal of perfection. Even 
for every unfulfilled desire, the realisation of 
which has never been attempted, and even for 
those which reason consciously or subconsciously 
tells us cannot be realised or attempted, there is, 
by implication, an apprehension of the potential 
or possible realisation of such desires in a world 
unlimited by the incompleteness of human power. 
The absurd impulse to transplant ourselves across 
the ocean in one moment — ^nay, to span the globe 
—which an unfettered imagination may suggest, 
is at once checked and removed from the sphere 
of possible desires by rational man. But the pos- 
sibilities of such perfect and unlimited power 
must be present to the imagination of man, though 
he at once realises, by the habitual consciousness 
of his own limited organism, that it is not within 
his grasp. It exists in his imagination as an idea. 
This imagination is regulated and limited — 
though never extirpated — by reason and logic. 
Every act thus has its ideal; and the collective 

271 



acts emanating from one conscious centre which 
we call a personality, or an individual, have their 
ideal in the perfect man. Still further each social 
group of such individuals, leading us up to the 
state and to humanity as a whole, each have their 
ideal; until we come to the universe and to God 
in which the imagination outstrips more and more 
our inductive faculty, which already, through the 
highest physical and mathematical speculation, 
transcends the empirical and rises to pure meta- 
physics and ends in religion. 

The highest expression of induction and of this 
imagination are the intellectual achievements of 
man which we call science and art. They repre- 
sent our imagination led by the logical and aes- 
thetic faculties ; and these together, when turned 
to the life of man, lead to ethics and establish the 
laws of conduct. The scientific side of ethics leads 
to the adaptation of the human organism, to the 
surrounding conditions of nature and the inter- 
relation of man in his social and political organ- 
isation ; the aesthetic side of ethics enables him to 
realise and to project before his consciousness the 
most perfect image for man's activities on the 
basis of logic and truth with which science has 
provided him. To use two personal types from 
the actual history of past thought: the principle 
upon which the adequate and efficient codification 
of ethics should be based to meet the needs of our 
present life and to fulfill the hopes of future pro- 
gressive generations, (while never discarding, but 
emphatically embodying, the lasting principles of 
Mosaic and Christian ethics) is to be the mental 
fusion of Darwin and Plato. Mere induction, fa- 
talistic evolutionism, as applied to man's cons- 
cious life, can never lead us to a true ethical code. 

272 



Pure idealism, even when based upon the highest 
religion— nay, because of its very transcendental 
character— cannot respond to the actual needs of 
terrestrial life and human society, and cannot con- 
trol the potent currents of man's instincts, and 
passions, nor even the instincts and passions of 
wider social groups and of political bodies. 

It is, therefore, that, besides Moses and Christ, 
I have added the third great mental type in the 
history of human thought, namely, Plato. I do 
not propose to enter into the minute problems of 
Plato's theory of Ideas, nor is this essential to 
my purpose. Nor do I wish to enquire into the 
fact of how far Plato himself, or his followers, 
recognised the objective, almost material exis- 
tence, of such Ideas. The whole mediaeval ques- 
tion of Nominalism and Realism does not affect 
us. Whetlier the ideas have an actual objective 
existence or not, Plato's philosophy has confirmed 
for all times their actual existence in the human 
mind. It is with the effect (as their conscious re- 
alisation in our mind) which such ideas and ideals 
have in regulating our thoughts and actions, that 
we are here concerned. These thoughts and ac- 
tions, however, are based upon — saturated with — 
the inductive realisation of the facts of human 
life, as scientific and historical experience convey 
them to us. Evolution made conscious is to be- 
come a force directing mankind in its ethical prog- 
ress towards a more perfect state, both as re- 
gards individual man and human society. Plato 
for us thus means Rational and Practical Ideal- 
ism, neither retrospective nor mystical, neither ro- 
mantic nor Utopian, but idealism all the same 
which will safely ensure the progress of mankind. 



273 



CHAPTER V 

Platonic Idealism Applied to Ethical Evolu- 
tion. The Ethics of the Future 

Before attempting to indicate the general out- 
line and character which the codification of our 
ethical system will require, I should like to pre- 
mise two isolated instances, the direct applica- 
bility of which to the main question before us may 
not be so evident, but of which in due course I 
shall illustrate the bearings. 

The first instance is meant to show the possi- 
bilities, by means of the creation of favorable ma- 
terial conditions and of direct education, of the 
moral and intellectual improvement to which the 
less favoured classes, including even the unskilled 
and illiterate labourer may attain. I can vouch 
for the absolute truth of this statement, free from 
all exaggeration, from personal experience. 

The Gilchrist Educational Trust has for many 
years provided lectures for the laboring classes of 
Great Britain and Ireland which, by intelligent 
and careful management on the part of the trus- 
tees and secretaries, have won for themselves a 
popularity which ensures for every Gilchrist lec- 
turer in every part of the United Kingdom huge 
audiences. They consist almost exclusively of 
working men and women, the average attendance 
being about fifteen per cent of the inhabitants of 
every town or village where these lectures are 
held. The lowest number of attendants that I can 
remember would be between four and five hun- 



274 



dred: while a single lecturer has often had as 
many as five thousand. The lectures held in the 
largest room available, from the drill halls and 
exhibition halls to the crowded schoolrooms, or, 
where no such public places are to be found, in 
chapels. The entrance fee is one penny per lec- 
ture, and not infrequently the tickets are sold out 
at once and admittance has had to be refused to 
large numbers. These audiences, consist of min- 
ers, mill-hands and factory-hands in the various 
industrial districts, from Scotland to Land 's End, 
from the West to the East coast, and have also 
included fishermen and agricultural laborers from 
fishing villages and agricultural districts, in which 
the same eagerness to learn has manifested it- 
self. Moreover this desire is seen most markedly 
in the fact, that, whereas every lecturer of experi- 
ence will admit that the attention of the more 
highly educated audiences elsewhere can hardly 
be held for more than one hour, these Gilchrist 
audiences are not satisfied with less than one hour 
and a quarter and will often willingly sit through 
a longer period. The absolute stillness and the 
keen responsiveness of these men and women are 
most remarkable and exceptional. The Gilchrist 
lecturers are not of the type of the popular lec- 
turer, but are generally themselves leading author- 
ities and specialists in the one subject. The most 
successful Gilchrist lecturers have been men like 
Huxley and Sir Robert Ball. Not only science in 
all its branches has thus been brought before these 
large audiences of labouring men, but they have 
even been introduced into the higher realms of lit- 
erature and art. It is an undeniable fact that 
thousands of these roughest colliers and miners, 
sitting in wrapt attention, often with their caps 

275 



on, for well over an hour, have been made to ap- 
preciate not only history and poetry — even the 
poetry of Robert Browning properly read and ex- 
plained to them — but also the sublime beauty of 
Greek art more than two thousands years old, 
presented to them in lantern illustrations by the 
fragmentary remains of the Parthenon sculp- 
tures ; and this interest and appreciation has been 
sincere and lasting. That it has been possible to 
lead men, with but scanty preparation in elemen- 
tary education, whose usual form of relaxation 
and amusement, when not confined to the public 
house, has been a fight between bull terriers, to 
appreciate the highest forms of art, which are 
generally supposed to be the exclusive birthright 
of the most highly educated poi*tion of the com- 
munity, furnishes undeniable encouragement for 
those who believe in the power of social legisla- 
tion and such forms of education which tend to 
the advancement of the moral, intellectual and ar- 
tistic side of human nature. 

The second incident, the bearing of which, as 
will readily be seen, is upon the general question 
of social improvement for the great mass of the 
people, concerns the fundamental point of view 
in which this question of betterment is opposed, 
with exaggerated emphasis, to the prevailing 
attitude held chiefly by the professed socialists 
and by those who publicly or privately are con- 
cerned in the work of social reform. I here give 
it in the words of the narrator himself : 

'^ Though suifering from a temporary break- 
down in health, I had promised the organisers of 
the Summer Extension Meeting in my University 
to give the opening address in one section of their 
courses of lectures. They were all addressed to 

276 



widely varied audiences of less favoured students 
from all over England, as well as from foreign 
countries, who flocked to these centres to acquire 
some of the learning which a university can give 
them. My condition in accepting the invitation to 
open the course of lectures was, that I w^ould do 
this, if I was at the time within two hundred miles, 
and only in case an eminent colleague of mine, the 
late Sir Richard Jebb, was unable to do so. It 
turned out that my colleague was thus prevented. 
I, on the other hand, after a rest-cure in the Black 
Forest, was completing a further cure at one of 
the other German watering-places several hun- 
dred miles distant from my university. Never- 
theless, I decided to fulfil my promise, to inter- 
rupt my cure, to travel direct to England, deliver 
the lecture, and to return to Germany to continue 
my cure the very next day. 

"I had settled myself comfortably in a first-class 
carriage which, moreover, I fortunately found 
empty, with sufficient reading material and every 
other comfort, when, on arriving at Cologne, I 
found the railway station crowded with people all 
anxious to enter the express bound for England. 
The numbers were so great that second and even 
first class carriages had to be filled with many 
third-class passengers. There rushed into my 
compartment five men with much hand luggage, 
who filled every available seat and who at once 
began noisily to take possession of the carriage, 
and, not only ostentatiously made themselves at 
home in every way, but proceeded to eat and 
drink in a manner which was far from attractive. 
A coarse-faced German of the aggressive half Teu- 
ton, half Slav type of labouring men, flat-faced 
and brutal in features, took out his sausage and 

277 



cheese, cut them into largish squares with his 
clasp-knife, and ate with ostentatious appetite. 
Though I endeavoured not to show my displeas- 
ure at this incursion upon my comfort, I soon felt, 
emanating from my five fellow travellers, an at- 
mosphere of antagonism to me, which was made 
still more noticeable by their remarks in German, 
a language which they evidently thought I did not 
understand. 

' ' I soon discovered that they were delegates to 
the Great Socialist Congress about to be held in 
London, and it was equally clear that they looked 
upon me as the blatant and luxurious bourgeois, 
if not capitalistic aristocrat, the embodied repre- 
sentative of all the principles which they held in 
odium and the personal type most antagonistic 
to themselves. It was also manifest that they 
rather enjoyed my discomfiture. But the conver- 
sation grew more and more interesting, especially 
owing to the part taken by one member of the 
party, whose physiognomy and manner as well as 
the acuteness of thought and wide range of knowl- 
edge displayed in well chosen and beautiful Ger- 
man, were in strong contrast to the remarks of 
his companions. He was sallow-faced and had 
dark hair, with a well cut thin aquiline nose, and 
luminous dark eyes — the superior and refined 
Semitic type, strongly contrasted to the more vul- 
gar Teutonic and Slav type of the others. As I 
afterwards learnt, he was one of the leading so- 
cialist delegates from Saxony. 

"As the conversation continued, and irrepressi- 
ble desire arose in me to take part in it — incident- 
ally to correct their misapprehension as to my own 
nature and principles, and to punish them for the 
injustice they had done to me, and through me my 

278 



kind, and finally, perhaps, to do some good 
through these leaders of socialist thought, by cor- 
recting some of their views. Still more there arose 
in me a certain humorous and paradoxical mood, 
perhaps not entirely free from a sense of superi- 
ority and mastery in the very sphere which they 
professed as exclusively their own. This mood 
was in some respects akin to the irony of Mephis- 
topheles when dealing with the schoolboy. 

"When at last the opportunity offered itself in 
the course of the discussion, I cut in with exag- 
gerated quiet and simplicity of manner, apolo- 
gising for my intrusion, and, in the course of my 
remarks, I lightly threw in with unaltered nat- 
uralness and simplicity: **As my late friend Karl 
Marx often said * * *." The effect was most 
startling, as if a bomb-shell had exploded amongst 
them. They all eagerly turned to me and shouted : 
''What, you knew Karl Marx? And he was a 
friend of yours?" I answered in the same quiet 
tone, unmoved by their almost passionate eager- 
ness: "O yes, even a Dutz-freund" (an intimate 
friend to whom in Germany one says 'thou' in- 
stead of 'you'). 

"I must here explain that in my young days, 
when I was little more than a boy, about 1877, the 
eminent Russian legal and political writer, since 
become a prominent member of the Duma, Pro- 
fessor Kovalevsky, whom I had met at one of 
G. H. Lewes and George Eliot's Sunday after- 
noon parties in London, had introduced me to 
Karl Marx, then living in Hampstead. I had seen 
very much of this founder of modem theoretic so- 
cialism, as well as of his most refined wife (nee 
von Westphal) ; and, though he had never suc- 
ceeded in persuading me to adopt socialist views, 

279 



we often discussed the most varied topics of po- 
litics, science, literature, and art: Besides learn- 
ing much from this great man, who was a mine of 
deep and accurate knowledge in every sphere, I 
learnt to hold him in high respect and to love the 
purity, gentleness and refinement of his big heart. 
He seemed to find so much pleasure in the mere 
freshness of my youthful enthusiasm and took so 
great an interest in my own life and welfare, that 
one day he proposed that we should become Dutz- 
freunde, and I still possess one of his photographs 
on which he has thus addressed me. 

"But the effect of this revelation upon these 
worshippers of Karl Marx was so intense and in- 
stantaneous that, from that moment, they hung 
upon my lips and showed humble regard and keen 
interest. The conversation grew more and more 
interesting, and I was especially attracted by the 
personality of the Saxon deputy, towards whom, 
do what I would to include the others, my own 
conversation was chiefly addressed. 

"Before we parted, however, I decicled to have 
the main question out in a most direct and per- 
sonal form. I then openly returned to the inci- 
dents of our trip from the moment they had en- 
tered the carriage and charged them with having 
assumed that I was their natural enemy, was no 
friend of the people, and that they had monop- 
olished all the love of mankind and the sympathy 
with human suffering ; that I was one of those sel- 
fish, self-indulgent, luxurious capitalists who fat- 
tened on the misery of the poor worker. They had 
to admit that I was right. 

" 'Well then,' I continued, Met us compare 
notes. Who are you, and who am I? What are 
you doing, and what am I doing?" 1 then gave 

280 



them truthfully a sketch of my own life and ac- 
tivities, and ended by telling them the mission on 
which I was engaged at that moment, and the pe- 
culiar conditions under which I was fulfilling the 
definite task I had undertaken. 

' * When I had finished my account^ they turned 
upon me and said: 'But you are one of us. You 
are a socialist, whatever you may say. There can 
be no difference between us.' And my Saxon 
friend continued: "You may say what you wall,, 
in Germany you would be considered a socialist, 
merely from your attitude and action towards the 
working classes, and those in power would force 
you into our ranks ; for there would be no room 
for you in any other party. You, at all events, 
not only love the people, but you have faith in 
them. ' 

' ' My answer to him was : ' You are right in your 
last remark, but you are all wrong if you think 
that I am at one with you socialists and that there 
i=^ no difference between us.' And here I felt 
driven, perhaps by an oratorical impulse, to make 
my point doubly clear through paradoxical ex- 
aggeration of the difference between us, putting 
this difference in an almost brutal form. 

' ' The difference between us, in spite of my love 
for the people and my faith in them, is that I think 
it more important for the world, that one man 
should be made ein feiner Mensch, should be made 
more refined, than that hundreds, nay perhaps 
even thousands, of ordinary men should have 
more food to eat than they have at present. I be- 
lieve, that in all prosperous and civilised com- 
munities, every man should have the right to live 
and even the right to work. I also hold that much 
will have to be done by direct legislation to check 

' 281 



the power of capitalism in finance and in the other 
forms of manipulation of capital, which lead to 
that excessive accumulation in the hands of in- 
dividuals, giving them an unbounded power in 
public life without corresponding responsibilities ; 
— that such accumulation of capital in single 
hands is ' against good policy. ' 

"I am thus, perhaps, a socialist at the bottom 
and the top. But I am an absolute individualist 
in between. Now, having made this concession, I 
think it more important for me that, by whatever 
work I am able to do, I should continue to de- 
velop, if not in man in general, at all events in 
certain men, those higher spiritual attainments, 
the totality of which constitutes a higher htunan 
being and produces a higher community, and, ul- 
timately, a higher mankind than that which our 
own days present. These higher and more re- 
fined men are to be the leaders of mankind ; and, 
by their work, impersonal and indirect, as well as 
personal and direct, they are to draw into their 
higher circle whoever from the mass of the pro- 
letariat is capable of such advancement: and by 
this constant action and reaction {Wechselwirk- 
ung) the whole of the proletariat, the mass of the 
people, is to be raised. 

' ' But, mark you, these higher individuals are to 
be the leaders. Let me tell you that Karl Marx 
was not out of sympathy with this view, even in 
its negative attitude as regards the claims of the 
lower orders ; and it was he who was fond of quo1> 
ing those verses of your great Goethe from his 
'West-ostliche Divah' on the presentation to a 
lady of a small bottle containing attar of roses : 



282 



Au Snieika. 

Dir mit Wohlgerucli zu kosen, 
Deine Freuden zu erhohn, 
Knospend miissen tausend Rosen 
Erst in Gluthen untergehn. 

Um ein Flaschchen zu besitzen, 
Das den Ruch auf ewig halt, 
Schlank wie deine Fingerspitzen, 
Da bedarf es einer Welt. 

Finer Welt von Lebenstrieben, 
Die in ihrer Fiille Drang 
Ahndeten schon Bulbuls Lieben, 
Seelerregenden Gesang. 

S'ollte jene Qual uns qualen, 
Da sie unsre Lust veraiehrt? 
Hat nicht Myriaden Seelen 
Timur's Herrschaft aufgezehrt?^ 



Thee to woo with perfume sweetest, 
And thy love to cherish. 
Blossoming, one thousand roses. 
Glowing, had to perish. 

Thus to give a graceful phial, 
Which should hold the scent. 
Slim and tap'ring like thy fingers, 
A whole world was spent. 

A whole world of living forces. 
Striving full and long. 
Prescient of Bulbul's loving 
And soul-stirring song. 

Why then grieve at loss and sorrow 
Which increase our joy? 
Doth not myriad souls of living 
Timur's rule destroy ? 



(1) I must subjoin this imperfect translation of an untrans- 
latable lyric. 



283 



' * The action of consistent socialism, with which 
J am entirely out of sympathy, is lowering, not 
only to the strong, good, wise, and great indi- 
vidual; but it is also lowering to mankind as a 
whole, and gives no hope of an advance towards 
the ideals which man as man must form for the 
future. In so far I am your enemy and we are 
opponents. 

**The Saxon deputy thoughtfully shook his 
head, and said: 'Well, there is much to be said 
for your point of view, but you must allow me to 
refuse to be your enemy and to hope that you 
will be our friend." 

We have seen — and, because of the vital im- 
portance to the main purpose of this book, I have 
repeated the statement more than once — the cry- 
ing need for what I have called the codification of 
contemporary morals, or at least the clear and in- 
telligible (intelligible even to the average man) 
expression of the moral consciousness of each age 
and each country. The great fault in this re- 
spect has hitherto been that the treatment of ethi- 
cal subjects in the hands of the philosopher-speci- 
alist in ethics has almost exclusively been con- 
cerned with the discussion of the main or abstract 
principles and foundations of ethics, the mere 
prolegomena to ethical teaching which should be 
of direct practical use as a guide to conduct. 
Such practical and efficient guides to conduct and 
teaching of morality has generally been by means 
of ephemeral or casual moral injunction on the 
part of the priests of every denomination. It 
thus, not only received a sectarian or dogmatic 
bias — often causing the whole moral structure to 
collapse when the foundations of belief in these 
dogmas were no longer valid for the person thus 

284 



instructed — or in any case, introducing the ele- 
ment of mysticism and the need for translation 
into the remote language of bygone ages, races, or 
conditions of life, and thus making more difficult 
the arduous task of applying clear principles of 
action to the complicated exigencies of actual and 
present life, on the clear understanding of which 
such principles ought to be based. 

Furtkei'more, the cognisance which the State 
has hitherto taken of this paramount factor in the 
life of the people and the direct action which the 
State has taken, has generally been confined to 
that aspect of 'Social Legislation,' chiefly or ex- 
clusively concerned in counteracting extreme pov- 
erty and social inefficiency and the evil results 
arising out of these, again chiefly from a purely 
economical point of view. The State has not di- 
rectly considered the positive moral and social 
betterment of the conditions of life and living and 
of the people themselves, nor directly aimed at 
the highest conceivable goal for social improve- 
ment. 

The most crying need before us, therefore, is 
the clear recognition of such an expression of the 
moral consciousness of the age and, without any 
interference with the established religious creeds 
and their practices as the expression of religious 
life, to provide for, first, such an expression of 
our moral requirements and, second, for the ef- 
fective dissemination of contemporary ethics 
throughout all layers of human society. 

The action of the State in this respect must be 
directly educational, and this educational function 
must be concerned, first, with the young and their 
lives and, second, with the adult population and 
its life. 

285 



However limited the time set aside in schools 
for the teaching of ethics may be, certain hours 
are thus to be devoted to the teaching of morals. 
The text-book of such elementary ethics is, above 
all, to be clear and concise, and must contain those 
moral injunctions which would be universally ac- 
cepted by all right thinking people within the na- 
tion and admitted by every religious sect or creed. 
The teachers themselves should be provided with 
explanatory additions to the text-books, contain- 
ing or suggesting instances from actual life which 
should convincingly illustrate each moral injunc- 
tion from the short text-book in the hands of the 
pupils. Of course it will be left to the well quali- 
fied teacher to increase and to enlarge upon such 
definite and illuminating examples. Even the 
question of moral casuistry — the conflict or clash- 
ing of the various duties — are to be definitely 
treated. 

Though I cannot attempt the actual production 
of such a text-book here, and can only discuss the 
general principles upon which it is to be based and 
carried into effect, I may yet touch upon some of 
the difficulties of moral casuistry without enter- 
ing too fully into problems which in all ages have 
led to interminable discussion. The way to deal 
with such moral casuistics is the purely positive 
and not the negative method. By that I mean that 
one valid moral injunction is not eliminated by the 
fact of its clashing with another. Each one re- 
mains valid ; though at times reason and the ap- 
plication of a general sense of justice and propor- 
tion may have to decide whether the one injunc- 
tion is not stronger than the other. ' Thou shalt 
not lie' retains its validity, even though 'Thou 
shalt not endanger the life and the permanent 

286 



happiness of another' may lead the physician or 
the friend for the nonce to tell an untruth to an 
insane person or an invalid when the truth would 
undermine life or life's efficiency. A practical 
moral test can always be transmitted to the pupil, 
in bringing him conscientiously to ask himself 
whether, imagining that when the cause which led 
him to tell such an untruth or to commit an in- 
fraction of an ethical law is removed, he would 
be prepared to lay before the person to whom he 
told the untruth, the course of action which he 
had pursued. 

That such moral casuistry presents many diffi- 
culties is undeniable. But who has ever assumed, 
or had any right to assume, that life can be lived 
without difficulties'? Which one of the studies of 
science or art, or human learning is free from 
complications and almost unsurmountable difficul- 
ties which open the door to doubt and scepticism? 
Are we therefore not to include even mathematics, 
and the natural sciences, history and all other 
studies in our educational system, because such 
difficulties exist? 

The several aspects under which ethical ques- 
tions are to be treated in this elementary form, 
and which I shall further discuss are : 

1. Duty to the family ; 

2. Duty to the immediate community in which 
we live and social duties; 

3. Duty to the state ; 

4. Duty to humanity; 

5. Duty to self; 

6. Duty to things and actions as such ; and 

7. Duty to God. 

Of course I must here assume that the school- 
287 



masters entrusted with such a task are of high in- 
tellectual capacity, well prepared and qualified by 
superior education, the very highest which each 
country can give. Here again lies one of the 
most important and crying needs of reform. 
"With great readiness — not always sincere — the 
political representatives of the people will, on the 
platform at public meetings, recognise and fer- 
vently uphold the supreme claims of National edu- 
cation. But how many are prepared to carry 
such professions into effect, and to insist that this 
is perhaps the most important function of na- 
tional life? To educate the young requires in the 
teachers themselves, as instruments of supreme 
precision, the most complete preparation for this 
important and delicate task. 

No teachers who are directly, as well as indi- 
rectly, to influence the youth of the nation, how- 
ever elementary the immediate subject which they 
are to teach even to the youngest, are properly 
qualified, unless they have had the opportunity of 
attaining to the highest culture wliich the age can 
give. The most elementary teacher ought to have 
had all the advantages of the highest university 
instruction and to have been brought to the level 
of grasping and of assimilating the highest men- 
tal and moral achievements of the age. We might 
almost say — and it is not purely paradoxical to 
say this — That in consideration of the fact that in 
the earliest ages of childhood are laid the founda- 
tion of the indestructible and ineradicable ele- 
ments of character and intelligence, the training 
of the elementary teacher is of the highest im- 
portance in order to make him or her, in their 
mentality and whole personality, completely rep- 
resentative of the best which the age can give. 

288 



Were the state and the public to recognise this 
they would be driven to admit, that from the eco- 
nomical point of view, as well as from that of so- 
cial recognition and reward, those entrusted with 
the most important and valuable functions in our 
national life ought to receive higher remuneration 
and tlie marks of greater public distinction di- 
rectly by the Government and indirectly in the 
market which determines values, than the work 
of the financier or the successful promoter and 
most of those functions in modern life which now 
i-eceive the highest remuneration and distinction. 
But such is the insincerity, the flagrant contra- 
diction of our true inner beliefs and convictions 
and our admitted and persistent activity in the 
common life of the present, that this statement of 
mine would be received by most of my readers 
with a smile of compassionate and patronising in- 
credulity and doubt which, at most, admitting its 
truth in an ideal world, would deny the possibil- 
ity of its realisation in this actual world of ours 
and would stamp the temerity of all who would 
contemplate the possibility of carrying such 
principles into practical life as indicative of the 
unbalanced mind of the fantastic visionary. But 
history has proved again and again that truth 
may be delayed but cannot be suppressed forever. 
True ideas are the only things in the life of man 
which last ; and, as the machinery of state is im- 
proved and simplified, so that it can with readi- 
ness eliminate abuses and inaugurate improve- 
ments, the public will find ways and means to 
carry into effect what is clearly recognised as be- 
ing most essential to its ultimate interest. 

Beside this direct teaching of ethics in schools 
and households there remains another important 

289 



province, less directly bearing upon moral life 
but most important in its contributory effect to it. 
This is the other side of the two-fold division of 
our conscious life, the one of which is our life of 
work. It concerns our life of play, the recreative 
or more passive side of our existence. It is com- 
monly and generally believed by those responsible 
for the education of the young — parents and 
schoolmasters — that they are only concerned with 
the serious aspect of existence, the preparation 
for the working side of life, efficiency and duty. 
Their importance in our educational system is 
beyond all question. But it must be equally un- 
doubted, that the proper regulation of the recre- 
ative side in the life of the young — and for that 
in the adult population as well — is of equal im- 
portance. Many unwise parents and teachers of- 
ten think that the instinct for recreation, play 
and pleasure, is of itself so strong, so constantly 
potent and effective, in the young, that it is their 
chief duty to repress it. The result is, as in the 
case of any natural force which is unduly re- 
pressed until it finds vent in spontaneous com- 
bustion through its inherent energy, that the ir- 
repressible and ineradicable instincts rightly ex- 
isting in man's nature, which are thus unduly re- 
pressed, seek for and find expression in violent 
and detrimental forms, destructive to society as 
well as to the health and refinement of the indivi- 
dual. This side of youthful nature must not only 
not be ignored, but it must be consciously culti- 
vated. The instincts which make for "play" are 
to be led into channels, without interference and 
pedantry (which rob them of their very essence), 
in which they lead to healthy, elevating and re- 
fining forms, adding to strength of character re- 

290 



finement of taste. The recreative and leisure 
hours are to be filled with forms of interests and 
amusements increasing physical health as well as 
moral, intellectual and social refinement. 

Though the great and lasting advantage to the 
development of a sense of duty in the young to be 
derived from the concentration upon each task, 
the struggle with difficulties, and the repression 
of all forms of self-indulgence, is one of the most 
important results of school work, discipline and 
study, the bearing which these studies have upon 
the recreative side of human nature, the life of 
play, must never be lost out of sight. It cannot 
in any way diminish the great advantages which 
the teaching of every department of human knowl- 
edge thus has upon the development of the sense 
of duty, to aim at producing by such teaching a 
new intellectual interest which would respond to, 
and satisfy, the sense for play, recreation itself, 
and increase the moral and intellectual resource- 
fulness of man from his earliest age onwards, so 
that he can find joy and refreshment in such pur- 
suits and such thoughts that will lie outside of the 
direct sphere of his productive working exist- 
ence in after life. Above all, the love of thought, 
of knowledge, and of art in itself must be stimu- 
lated as a result of the direct teaching from the 
elementary school up to the university. 

These are the broad outlines of the duties of 
the state as regards the education of the young in 
securing the moral health of a nation. 

But as regards the adult population as well, the 
state has the duty directly to provide for, and to 
stimulate and satisfy, the need for higher educa- 
tion. It does this by directly producing or sup- 
porting the higher institutions of culture, be they 

291 



universities of other institutions for the purest 
and highest research in science, or in schools of 
art in every form, including of course, musical and 
dramatic art — in one word, in all that immediately 
responds to culture, i. e., the cultivation of things 
of the mind for their own sake. 

Still more direct in its bearing upon ethics is 
the moral example of the state itself. Truthful- 
ness in word and deed, justice without compro- 
mise, must apply to every public function and en- 
actment of the state. This applies to war as well 
as to peace. The lasting degradation, if not total 
inhibition, of morality expressed by the commonly 
accepted saying that "All is fair in war" is per- 
haps one of the greatest evils to mankind which 
war brings in its wake. But in time of peace, any 
miscarriage of justice on the part of the state has 
an effect detrimental to the moral consciousness 
of every citizen in that state, out of all proportion 
to the individual wrong which it does. Still more 
insidious and solvent of the public moral fibre is 
the cynical attitude which many departments of 
the administration actually put into practice. 
There are cases on record in which individuals or 
public bodies have desisted from carrying on a 
lawsuit against the state because of the disparity 
of pecuniary means between themselves and the 
endless resources of the administration from 
whom they seek justice and equity. The 'law's 
delay,' as applied to many a public servant or 
private civilian has kept them from urging their 
just claims; and they have ended in resigning 
themselves to bear unfairness with a sense of in- 
justice against the state. Moreover, the practice 
in several departments, such as that of customs 
and public revenue, of not rectifying an undue 

292 



payment until a claim is made and persistently 
demanded by the individual, the fact that no ob- 
ligation is felt by such departments to point out 
an error made in their favour and against the in- 
terests of the citizens, and perhaps even inquis- 
itorial methods and activities which do not come, 
and are not meant to come, directly to the cognis- 
ance of the citizen affected by them — all this im- 
presses a lowness of moral standard on the part 
of the collective power of the people, to which 
they look for authority and guidance, which is 
most lowering to the morals of the whole nation. 

It is thus by less tangible and far vaguer in- 
fluences that morality is affected and modified, if 
not produced. And we must therefore always 
bear in mind, even when considering the direct 
teaching of ethical principles in homes and at 
schools, for which I have just pleaded, that the 
efficient result of moral teaching, differing to some 
extent in this from the teaching of any skill of 
hand or pliability and accuracy of mind, cannot be 
so direct and directly applied. In order to be ef- 
fective, it must pass through the whole character 
of man, produce an ethos, a general moral emo- 
tional state, which will lead him to become a moral 
being and to act morally. Nevertheless, to attain 
this end, the actual apprehension of what the 
moral laws of the society in which he lives are, is, 
at some stage of his education and training to be 
clearly established and presented, so that ulti- 
mately these laws may permeate bis whole being 
and make him spontaneously feel and act as a. 
moral social being. 

Finally, there are two facts of great practical 
importance to be borne in mind when the actual 
teaching of ethics is considered. 

293 



The one is, that the teacher of ethics need in no 
way be a specialist in ethical theory or mani- 
festly and obviously by profession a pattern and 
model of higher life in himself. After all, every 
parent must be a teacher of morals. The theory 
of ethics requires scientific treatment in no way 
differing in method and concentration from the 
theoretical study of any other group of phenom- 
ena. Such theoretical study does not of necessity 
fit the specialist for the practical application of 
theory to actual life and to the education of young 
and old in accordance with theory. Moreover pro- 
fessed or specialized philanthropy or a life cor- 
responding to mystical religious emotionality are 
very trying to the mental and moral balance and 
health of their votaries. Clergymen of the ^'Pon-^ 
tifex''^ type are warning instances of moral obli- 
quity, if not degeneracy to which a life based on 
dogmatic supernatural principles, removed from 
the healthy versatility of normal life, may lead. 

The other is, that, especially with the young, 
the conception of Sin is, as far as possible to be 
withheld, and that ethics are to be inculcated with 
a bright and joyful outlook in the positive aspect 
of right actions and of ideals of perfection to- 
wards which man is to strive. We must teach 
positive and joyful, not negative and comminatory 
morals. 



294 



PART IV. OUTLINE OF THE PRINCIPLES 
OF CONTEMPORARY ETHICS 

A. Man's Duties as a Social Being 

CHAPTER I 

Duty to the Family 

I have in several of the preceding passages al- 
ready dwelt with the moral position of the family 
as regards its efficient training from the very ear- 
liest days onward in the intimate life of the home. 
It is here that our training in intellectual and 
moral altruism is most effectively realised. As 
a social unit, forming and developing conditions 
most conducive to the social welfare of all the 
larger bodies of human society, it cannot be re- 
placed. When once the strictly vital principles 
and practices, which establish the hard and fast 
privileges of definite classes simply by the fact of 
birth, have been discarded, the continuous influ- 
ence of the family in our own days, and prospec- 
tively on the future advancement of society, is un- 
doubtedly good. The feudal principle (by which 
I mean privileges established by birth) did not 
consider qualifications and efficiency for the social 
and political functions which its privileges gave; 
while, on the other hand, it directly offended 
man's sense of justice, and can therefore not be 
supported by any society based upon reason and 
morality. On the other hand, the continuity of 
collective effort, which with such forcefulness 

295 



makes itself felt in every member of a collective 
group, achieves results for the good of the state 
and in consequence receives recognition and hon- 
our. The family as a social imit in the state is 
of the greatest use in advancing the public war- 
fare. No reasonable i^erson can deny the moral 
effect upon the individual and its ultimate influ- 
ence upon society at large to be made to real- 
ise constantly, with more or less complete con- 
sciousness, the effect of every single act and of 
the totality of life-work, not only upon oneself, 
but upon all members of a household and a family 
who by physical propinquity and moral interde- 
pendence are directly concerned in the results of 
man's every act. There is many a loophole 
through which we can escape from the perform- 
ance of our more remote duties; but family life 
offers no such escape; and hence arises the re- 
volt against this institution as a whole on the part 
of those speculative self-ldeceivers, coquetting 
with philosophical generalisations to hide from 
themselves and others the all-pervading impulse 
of self-indulgence thwarted by the stern persist- 
ency of domestic duties, be they frivolous pleas- 
ure-seekers or philanthropic Mrs. Jellabys. More^ 
over, those possessed of the dullest imagination, 
can be stirred into projecting the result of their 
actions into the future, even beyond their own in- 
dividual life, by the contemplation of the lives of 
the children who are to succeed them. The home 
as a lasting unit of private property and the fam- 
ily as a social entity are among all the possible 
groups of human institutions perhaps the most 
effective in giving the stamp of wider unegoistic, 
and hence more social, motive and guidance to 
human activity. To make this home, not only di- 

296 



rectly responsive to the physical needs of the fam- 
ily; but also, whether cottage or palace, expres- 
sive of the best that is in the family, and as beau- 
tiful as taste can make it, is of itself undeniably 
good. To curb the impulse to squander one's 
substance on drink in the public house, or on 
yachts, or on racehorses in order that wife and' 
children may be benefited materially, morally 
and intellectually ; and even beyond this, to create 
by such sacrifice of personal self-indulgence, con- 
ditions which should favour the existence and the 
improvement of the home and its occupants after 
one's own death, are surely guides to conduct 
w^hich directly lead to the future improvement of 
society as a whole. To summarise these consider- 
ations in one simple and concrete, yet typical, in- 
stance: to plant a tree in a cottage garden or a 
park, w^hich he who plants can never hope to see 
in full maturity, but with clear consciousness real- 
ises that he is planting for his children and chil- 
dren's children cannot be considered selfish or un- 
social by any right-thinking or public-spirited 
man. Whatever development in the future the 
tendencies towards collectivism and state owner- 
ship may lead to, the justification of individual 
property, not only in its intrinsic morality, but 
from the social — even the socialistic — point of 
view, is greater in the case of the cottage with its 
garden and the country house with its park, than 
in the share of the capital in any industrial enter- 
prise or state security. ^ 

Not only, however, in this aspect of the family 
and the home is its influence to be found. It is 
also to be found in a less apparent, yet directly 
moral and social, aspect — none the less effective 



(1) See Appendix IV. 

297 



in its moral bearing through thus being less evi- 
dent. In this aspect the family considered as a 
unit places upon each member a responsibility 
and a duty to the family as a whole with regard to 
his conduct and character and position which the 
individual member of a family establishes to- 
wards the outer world. In one word this point of 
view is concerned with family honour. I shall 
have occasion to touch on this complicated, though 
most important, moral factor in dealing with 
man's duty to society and his duty to self. Here 
again the continuous and intimate relationship of 
people to one another cannot be replaced, as re- 
gards its constraining effectiveness, by any con- 
sideration of wider, vaguer and less persistent so- 
cial relationships. In so far the educative and 
disciplinary influence of the family is supreme 
and, I repeat again, that if the injustice and ir- 
rationality of the direct privileges of birth handed 
on from the Middle Ages, be eliminated, this edu- 
cative and disciplinary influence is wholly for the 
good of society and its advancement in the future. 
To know that you are not only injuring yourself 
and justly lowering your own reputation by dis- 
honest or mean actions or even by self-indulgent 
idleness and thriftlessness, but that your conduct 
immediately affects, not only the welfare of the 
home and the physical existence of those who 
dwell in it, and further, that it tarnishes the fam- 
ily honour — such consciousness is surely conduc- 
ive to the good of society. On the other hand, to 
know and to realise, while making any noble ef- 
fort, that not only joy is brought to those who 
are nearest and dearest, but that by such effort 
family honour is assured and elevated, is one of 
the noblest incentives to moral effort, constantly 

298 



present in the minds and in the lives of even tlie 
average human being of untrained and lowly 
imagination. And when, beyond this, the imagina- 
tion is stirred to realise that even after death the 
honour of the family will survive, and that the 
children and children's children will look back 
with pride and gratitude to the moral integrity, 
the intellectual acliievement and the successful 
energy of their parents and grandparents, an ef- 
fective incentive to good social action is provided 
which can hardly be replaced by any other motive, 
and can at least not be condemned as either harm- 
ful or ignoble. The realisation of these moral fac- 
' tors emanating from the family, includes in the 
practice of life the establishment of a definite 
group of duties which can be formulated and must 
be modified by the moral consciousness of each 
age in their relation to other duties. The first 
keynote is struck by the Fifth Commandment 
with which I have dealt above. But this must 
be enlarged upon and formulated so as to serve as 
a definite practical guide to conduct, and must 
therefore include the several duties of the various 
members of a family to each other and to the fam- 
ily as a whole. 



299 



CHAPTER II 

Duty to the Community and to Society 

THE ART OF LIVING 

The Ideal of the Gentleman 

We have dealt with the duties to the family; 
but man's duties do not end here, as little as the 
just impulse to self-advancement frees him from 
these duties. Each narrower group of duties 
must fit in with and advance the wider sphere of 
duties. Fortunately there is no inherent necessity 
why they need clash. For the best member of a 
family ought also naturally to be the best mem- 
ber of a wider society. On the other hand, owing 
to the limitations of human nature, the absorbing 
dominance of single passions and instincts, and 
the centripetal or selfish instinct which congests 
the sympathies, each narrower sphere of duties 
ought to be supplemented and rectified by the 
wider and higher ethical outlook towards which it 
ought harmoniously to tend. ''Charity begins at 
home," but ought not "to stay at home" is emin- 
ently and deeply true. Moreover, it can be proved 
(and I am sure I shall be borne out by any experi- 
enced observer of life), that the narrower and 
more exclusive are our sympathies, the less effici- 
ent are they even when applied to the narrower 
sphere. ^ The absolute and amoral egoist does 
not love even himself truly and wisely. And those 

(1) See the Jewish Question &c., p. 94. 

300 



members of a family in whom the family feeling is 
hypertrophied to an abnormal degree, so that it 
is blunted with regard to the wider life beyond 
and may even produce an antagonistic attitude to- 
wards it, are most likely to be, within the family 
group, intensely selfish, whenever there arises a 
clashing of interests and passions between them- 
selves and other members of their family. To 
them applies what in an earlier portion of this 
book has been said concerning the Chauvinist. 

In the progression of duties from the narrower 
to the wider sphere we proceed from the family 
to the immediate community in which we live. I 
in no way wish here to maintain that the social 
classifications now attaching to birth, wealth or 
occupation are to be fixed and stereotyped in class 
distinctions without any appeal to reason and jus- 
tice, as little as I accept the extreme ideals of ab- 
solute socialism, which reduce all life and ambi- 
tions to the same level. But, considering our life 
as it actually is, we must begin our general social 
duties by performing those several functions 
which physically and tangibly lie before us ac- 
cording to the position in which we are placed, 
with a view to the material, moral and social ad- 
vancement of such a community. However re- 
mote the central occupations of our life may be 
from the life of the place in which we actually live, 
we must not, and we need not, ignore our immedi- 
ate duties to the collective life of this group of 
people or this locality. In many cases, nay, in 
most cases, our life-work may be immediately 
concerned, or connected with, a certain locality. 
Whether as labourers, or as farmers, or as land- 
lords ; whether as artisans, or as managers, or as 
proprietors of factories, or other industrial enter- 

301 



prises; whether as merchants or as tradesmen, 
employers or employed, we thus have distinct and 
definite duties towards those with whom we are 
co-operating, and, outside the interests of the defi- 
nite work in hand, we are directly concerned in the 
collective social life of the place where our work 
and our interests lie. But even if our home and 
residence fall within a district far removed from 
the actual centre of our life-work, even if this 
work is of so immaterial a character that it 
reaches beyond the locality and even the country, 
our immediate duty as members of such a com- 
munity, to do our share in regulating the social 
life surrounding our home, always remains. 

Nor is the social duty we have here to contem- 
plate merely concerned with our not transgress- 
ing the existing laws that emanate from what is 
called social legislation; nor is it only concerned 
with the provision of all that goes to physical sub- 
sistence A\ithin the community, the fight with pov- 
erty, misery and want, or merely with the increase 
of physical comforts and amenities ; but it is posi- 
tively and directly concerned with the advance- 
ment and improvement of the social life as such, 
in so far as we come into contact with it. It even 
concerns our relation with every member of such 
a community in which we live. 

Hitherto the recognised social activity in what 
is called social reform, as affecting the individual, 
and still more as leading to state legislation, has 
been chiefly concerned either with the avoidance 
of physical misery, or with the removal of injus- 
tice, or with the increase of physical comfort. 
From these broad and more public points of view 
we rise to the consideration of the social relation 
of individuals among each other in all the com- 

302 



plexities of private life and intercourse, not only 
in business or work, but also in the free and var- 
ied inter-relations of purely social existence. But 
beyond this there is a further task, when we re- 
gard human society as a whole. We must then 
recognise and establish in each successive genera- 
tion the rules governing such intercourse. Theso 
are established by an attempt to adapt life to the 
existing and constraining conditions which we find 
about us, to make it run smoothly and harmoni- 
ously with the least friction so as to avoid con- 
flicts and consequent misery. But by calling in 
the help of Plato, such rules of social conduct may 
be raised to a higher level towards the perfec- 
tion of social intercourse and of society as a whole. 
Not only physically, but spiritually as well, each 
successive generation must be led on to higher ex- 
pressions of its true humanity, to the highest ex- 
pression of individual man and the highest cor- 
porate existence of society. Kant's Categorical 
Imperative, which enjoins upon us to act so that 
we should guard in everything we do the dignity 
of our neighbour as well as our own, will ever re- 
main one of the most perfect epigrammatic sum- 
maries of the duties of man as a social being. 

As I have said before : most of us are not likely 
to murder or to steal ; but we are all of us prone to 
murder the dignity and self-respect of our neigh- 
bour, to steal from him that claim to regard and to 
esteem which is his by right, both human and di- 
vine, or to wound his sensibility by our own acts 
of commission or omission. How often do we sin 
from a want of delicate altruistic imagination! 
Without directly wishing to hurt or harm, we are 
led, in selfish preoccupation and bluntness, to 
wound a man to the very core of his self-respect 

303 



or more frequently to disregard and ignore his 
harmless vanity. 

Beyond economical prosperity, even beyond 
charitable efforts to relieve want and misery, be- 
yond fair dealing in business and in social inter- 
course, lies, for the true conception of an ideal so- 
ciety, the Art of Living itself, upon the refinement 
and constant realisation of which depends to a 
great extent the happiness of human beings and 
the advancement of human society. To make our 
homes habitations which should harmonise, and 
thus favour the free development of, our social 
instincts and to prepare each individual for such 
perfect intercourse with his fellow men, and to 
educate and to encourage the individual thus to 
perfect and harmonise his life in order to increase 
happiness for himself and for others, is the defin- 
ite duty before us. The claims of such duty are 
as weighty and the need of dealing with them as 
urgent as are all the more manifest and serious 
duties of morality which have hitherto received 
the sanction of moral society and of its educators. 
That community and that nation is highest in 
which this Art of Living is most completely real- 
ised in the home itself and in the training of the 
individual. 

I venture to say that in this respect, however 
unfavourably we as a nation may compare in 
some aspects of our public education with the 
other nations of Europe, we still stand highest. 
In certain parts of the United States of America 
the same high standard is attained. From the 
cottages of our poorest labourers and the sub- 
urban villas of our artisans and clerks, to the 
town dwellings of our merchants and tradesmen, 
till we come to the larger country houses standing 

304 



in their parks — all these homes are not only ex- 
pressive of comparatively greater wealth, but 
show, on the part of their occupants, some de- 
sire — whether partly or wholly successful — to 
beautify the home beyond the mere needs of physi- 
cal subsistence, to make it respond to the life of 
its occupants beyond the mere provision of shel- 
ter and food. From the strip of cottage garden 
without, to the interior furnishing of the modest 
cottage, and so on throughout the dwellings of 
every layer of society, there is shown here some 
effort to respond to this important contribution to 
the Art of Living, which in so far surpasses all 
other European nations. 

Moreover, as a heritage handed down through 
centuries of political liberty in representative 
forms of government, however indirect and often 
very slight in its effectiveness, the sense of so- 
cial responsibility and of collective action in every 
social group throughout the country, is higher 
than in countries which do not possess as a living 
tradition the responsibilities, as well as the rights, 
of the individual as regards communal life. 

The social sense, based upon justice and fair- 
ness, has furthermore been most efficiently devel- 
oped among us by our national sports and pas- 
times, and their deep penetration into the life of 
both men and women. Whatever may rightly 
have been urged against the excess of interest 
shown in sport among the young in our educa- 
tional institutions, as well as among our adult 
population, the fact remains, that the sense of 
freely established (not imposed from without or 
from above) social discipline, the steady develop- 
ment in the public consciousness of the sense o! 
justice and of fair play, have been of inestimable 

305 



advantages to our national life and to the social 
ethics guiding it and in which other countries, not- 
ably Germany, are grossly wanting Let us never 
forget this essential and conspicuous result of our 
national sports and cultivate and cherish them ac- 
cordingly, though the very realisation of their im- 
portance must lead us to combat all abuses and 
elements of exaggeration or degeneracy inherent 
in some of their forms or consequent upon their 
disproportionate and inapposite cultivation. 

The more we recognise the importance of these 
forms of collective physical recreation as factors 
in the social development of the people, the 
greater becomes the need to supplement them by 
the cultivation of the spiritual and moral forms of 
play, the appreciation and pursuit of science and 
art, to which, under favourable conditions, even 
the mass of the people can be made thoroughly 
responsive. The illustration I gave in an earlier 
part of this book in the case of the Gilchrist lec- 
tures will indicate the possibility of such a wide 
diffusion of culture in all social strata. The un- 
deniable good which during the past centuries — in 
spite of the blighting interregnum of iconoclastic 
Puritanism — the Established Church in England 
has done, by disseminating, through village and 
town choirs, the appreciation and the practice of 
music (though limited to church music), has 
borne its fruit throughout the whole country and 
has established, notably in Yorkshire and Lanca- 
shire developments of choir-singing, which so com- 
petent a judge as the late Professor Joachim pro- 
claimed to be of the best. No doubt on the secular 
side of musical development we can learn much in 
this respect from other countries, especially Ger- 
many. The same applies to the diffusion among 

306 



the people of the higher forms of dramatic art 
which in Germany and France are made acces- 
sible to the mass of the people. But in all other 
arts, especially as they are directly reflected in 
domestic life, whether it be in architecture, in the 
graphic or decorative arts, their vitalisation in the 
actual homes and lives of the people at large, Brit- 
ish Society stands higher than that of Germany. 

What we are here concerned with is the study of 
that aspect of these collective human efforts 
which are connected with the development of the 
individual towards a higher social ideal, and with 
those qualities of human character and living 
which, apart from the mere struggle of material 
existence, affect the relationship between human 
beings as such in their intercourse with one an- 
other. And we hold that this sphere of social 
ethics is of the utmost importance in the establish- 
ment of human morals. 

The summary of the qualities which prepare 
men for *'The art of living," that most important 
factor in the ideals of human society, is conveyed 
by the one term, "gentleman." This term has 
been adopted by most European nations in its 
English form and is the modern successor of the 
Mediaeval Knight or nobleman of the Italian 
cavaliere of the Renaissance, the French gentil- 
homme and the modem Austrian return to Me- 
diaevalism in the Kavalier. To be a gentleman is 
an indispensable condition to the production of 
the Superman. 

The ideal of the gentleman includes in its con- 
notation above all, that he should be 'a man of 
honour.' ^ Such a man is one who in all his ac- 



(1)1 have on a previous occasion (Jewish Question, 2nd ed., 
p. 324) attempted to define honour as follows: "Honour is 
practical conscience, conscience carried into action; and the 

307 



tions strives to live up to his highest principles in 
spite of ail the dictates of self-interest or co:i- 
venience which may draw or lead him into an- 
other direction. He has embodied in his code ir- 
respective of utility or advantage, the highest 
principles of social ethics prevalent in his day. 
Honesty and absolute integrity in all his dealings, 
and truthfulness, whether it be in the material 
business of life or in the more delicate and com- 
plex relations of social intercourse, are coupled 
with the generosity and the courage to uphold be- 
fore the world and in himself those principles 
which wilfully ignore all expediency. The man 
of honour is he who can never act meanly, think 
meanly or feel meanly. He never can be a moral 
coward any more than a physical one. He is the 
embodiment of virility and moral courage. He 
has developed in himself Plato's rb dvixoeiUs, 
true courage, which dominates x6 emdvixrjTtKov , 
the natural instincts and appetites, and enables 
him, if need be, to stand alone amidst the ruins 
of selfishness and iniquity, dominating the life 
about him. 

Si fra-ctus illabatur orhis, 
Inipavidum ferient ruinae. 

But it is in this conception of honour, that the 
need for summarising the highest ethical prin- 

man of honour is one in whom this practical conscience has be- 
"come second nature, an ineradicable habit. But we must all 
realise how frequent are the changes in the denotation of this 
term honour. Each period and every country has its peculiar 
conception of it, and the one age may oppose or ridicule the 
conception held by another, as one country may deny the code 
■of its neighbour. One country may consider it to be a stern 
dictate of the code of honour to fight a duel in satisfaction of 
Vounded vanity; while another country may laugh it away. But 
what always remains, and will remain, is the connotation of 
honour — the practical conscience as affecting our common social 
life, so effective that we are prepared to give up our lives in 
order to follow its dictates. 

308 



ciples successively in each age, to the insistence 
upon which this whole book is meant to contribute, 
makes itself most clearly felt. For there can be 
no doubt that in successive generations and under 
varying social conditions, as well as with the dif- 
ferent occupations and professions of life, the 
principles and standards of honour have varied 
and must naturally vary. They establish the ac- 
cepted code of honour for men and women living 
under these changing conditions, until they may 
become what, in a derogatory sense, is called a 
convention and what really means the crystal- 
lised and sometimes fossilised social experi- 
ence of each age, community, or social group. 

Now, it is against such conventions and their 
effect on life that the revolutionary innovators or 
reformers in our own day before all make war. 
These, of whom Nietzsche is the clearest and most 
pronounced type, endeavour with a stroke of the 
pen to eradicate from human society the sturdy 
plant of moral growth which has been evolved and 
strengthened for centuries, grafted upon and im- 
proved by the conditions of the progressive 
and refined life of civilised society. They wish to 
extirpate it from the moral consciousness of men, 
calling it a convention which blocks the way to the 
advent of the superman. But because there is no 
doubt that the conception of honour thus varies 
with different social conditions, that it even 
changes in its character and nature with the dif- 
ferent social gradations affected by the life-occu- 
pation of groups within the wider communities, 
such change only proves the vitality and all-lper- 
vading penetrative effectiveness of such a concep- 
tion of social ethics and the urgent need for the 
constant revision and renewed justification of its 

309 



existence by the application of the highest reason, 
by the action of Practical Idealism. 

The more a later generation, looking back with 
the unprejudiced clearness of impartial apprehen- 
sion, can realise the limitations and even distor- 
tions inherent in the conception of honour in 
previous ages, which have become effete social 
conditions, the greater and the more crying be- 
comes the need to modify and to define a new con- 
ception of social ethics as embodied in the idea of 
honour in accordance with the best that the suc- 
ceeding age can think and realise. The ideals em- 
bodied in the Principe of Machiavelli, in the Cor- 
tegiano of Castigiione, and to some extent in the 
'' Letters of Lord Chesterfield to his Son," can no 
longer be accepted by us. Many of the principles 
are directly repugnant to our moral sense; while 
many others have lost their significance to such 
a degree, that the seriousness and emphasis with 
which they are upheld appear to us frivolous and 
inept, because of the complete change in the social 
constitution and the actual life of our ow^n time 
and society. Still, many of the fundamental prin- 
ciples might remain, and might be incorporated 
into a modern code. 

If we thus consider the conception of honour 
from the historical point of view, we find that the 
highest honour in a definite society or state is es- 
tablished by the ruling class within that state. 
The keynote in a community with effective aristo- 
cratic classification, from the ruling classes down 
to the serfs, is struck by the ruling class. Not in- 
frequently the members of such a class claim foi- 
themselves (and the claims may be admitted by 
the lower and humbjler gradations of society) the 



310 



monopoly in the possession of the attributes of 
honour. 

Wherever there exists such fixed and stereo- 
typed class distinctions the lower and humbler 
classes may accept such exclusion from the claim 
to honour or, at all events, may themselves be 
lowered in their moral vitality in this respect and 
to that extent. To give but one broad instance, 
not so remote in time from ourselves: The ex- 
treme effectiveness as regards honour pertaining 
to the ruling class of the Samurai in Japan has re- 
pressed the moral standards for the commercial 
and other classes in that country, so that, in spite 
of the exceptional loftiness of moral standards 
among the Samurai, the commercial honesty and 
integrity and all those social qualities affected by 
the conception of honour have been lowered 
among the Japanese merchants and traders com- 
pared with those of China. As the uncompromis- 
ing and stereotyped class exclusiveness in Japan 
is making way for wider democratic freedom, the 
higher standards of the Samurai may become in- 
adequate and lose their effectiveness; but, on the 
other hand, the ideas of commercial honour and 
other social and ethical forces will extend and rise 
as the need for such extension and elevation 
makes itself felt with the rise in social position of 
the formerly repressed classes. This process of 
national and social transformation is one of the 
greatest problems facing the people of Japan. 
The same phenomenon may be perceived in com- 
paring the social conditions of the free continen- 
tal towns during the Middle Ages, which were 
not dependent upon, and were unaffected by, the 
conditions of life prevailing amongst the nobility 
in the country, and where, therefore, standards 

311 



of honour pertaining to commerce, trades and 
handicrafts were evolved which could not be re- 
pressed to a secondary, and in so far more de- 
graded position, by the comparative superiority 
of social conditions and of honour in the nobility. 

In the same way in our own days the careful ob- 
server may note that in countries and communities 
where, social consideration assi.gns a higher posi- 
tion to those occupations and conditions of life re- 
mote from commerce and trade, the social stand- 
ing and the standards of social living, ultimately 
the conception of honour, among merchants 
and tradesmen are not as high as in those 
communities where commerce and trade are 
not thus repressed. It is equally undoubted that 
occupations in life and their direct influence upon 
the mode of living, established special standards 
of social morality in themselves. 

The conditions of direct barter, for instance, are 
lower than in -commerce, because they leave such 
a wide margin to personal persuasiveness and 
even deception, which -cannot obtain in those larger 
commercial transactions where the object bought 
or sold cannot be seen or tested on the spot and 
where, therefore, the appeal to, and the direct need 
of, faith and trust in the truthful statement of 
vendor and purchaser are a necessary condition to 
all -commercial transactions. The presentation of 
a small sample in the hand to represent a shipload 
of such goods presupposes veracity on the part 
of vendor and of faith on the part of the pur- 
chaser. Higher principles and commercial integ- 
rity, commercial honour, may therefore be evolved 
in such wider commerce and may establish them- 
selves among all those following such an occu- 
pation in life. I wish merely to suggest, and 

312 



leave the reader to work it out for himself, how 
certain trades among us, from the very nature of 
the uncertainty inherent in the objects offered for 
sale, have proverbially produced standards of hon- 
our greatly differing from those of other 
commercial dealings. 

On the other hand, the extension of modern busi- 
ness into these vastly widened spheres, as well as 
the fact that it is almost entirely based upon 
credit, often unsupported by -corresponding as- 
sets ; and furthermore the rapid and enormous in- 
crease of speculation, which must always form 
some part in great commercial transactions so 
that it has become the dominant element, have 
blunted the sense of commercial responsibility, in- 
tegrity and honour, and have even opened the 
doors to downright dishonesty. They have also 
made the prospe-ct of insolvency or bankruptcy so 
common a possibility in the results of commercial 
transactions, that they have blunted the moral 
sense of responsibility and the old-fashioned 
standards of commercial honour which shrunk 
from insolvency and bankruptcy as in themselves 
dishonorable. Thus the present state of commer-ce 
often becomes in effect lowering to the moral 
standards of society and in its ultimate influence 
upon the life of civilised communities has eaten 
into the very core of the social morality of the 
whole world. 

Moreover, those conceptions of commerce and 
industry in which they are considered analogous 
to war, in which proverbially 'all is fair,' though 
actually prevalent, are certainly not sanctioned 
by the moral consciousness of the people when 
they face the question of publi-c and private moral- 
ity. Competition may be the soul of trade and 

313 



may be recognised and admitted as such. Its ef- 
fect in appealing to energy and arousing mental 
and moral effort in all workers is undoubtedly to 
the advantage of society, beyond the economical 
aspect in which it lowers prices to the advantage 
of the purchaser. Not only in the production and 
cost of goods, but in the rapidity and facilities 
of distribution and in the transportation of capi- 
tal in all directions where it is required by labour, 
commercial activity is undoubtedly to the benefit 
of society. The hard work, the concentration of 
energy, the application of human ingenuity and 
inventiveness to produce labour-saving appliances 
and to facilitate the transportation of goods as 
well as of capital, are undoubtedly of the utmost 
advantage to society, worthy of encouragement 
and recognition; they rightly bring great re- 
wards in the acquisition of wealth. Moreover, 
the results of such qualities, good in themselves, 
are to be encouraged and protected by society at 
large and by the state, in making laws to protect 
and promote them. The extension and enforce- 
ment of patent laws are wholly just and useful, 
and so far from being discarded, they ought to 
be still further developed and enforced. 

These patent laws must be supplemented by the 
laws of copyright which ensure the same advan- 
tages and encouragement to less physically mani- 
fest inventiveness and originality, to the more im- 
material and vaguer goods of the mind, be it in 
direct literary or artistic production or in the 
designs and the creation of new fashions, which 
stimulate industry through the exertion and men- 
tal superiority of the worker. Besides being ad- 
vantageous to society, the protection and encour- 



314 



agement of this kind of human productiveness 
directly appeal to our sense of justice. 

Though competition can thus be recognised and 
commended as a beneficent element in commercial 
life, the same does distinctly not apply to the de- 
generation of competition into the unscrupulous- 
ness and savagery of warfare, wherein the ruling 
standards of honesty and honour are discarded or 
ignored. When the methods of commerce or in- 
dustry imply or include and — as is often the case — 
are chiefly concerned in deception and lying ; when 
they encourage activities corresponding in a 
great degree to those of the spy in warfare ; when 
in dealings between vendor and purchaser and 
competitors all trust, not only in each other's state- 
ments, but in the primary intention on the part of 
each, to deal fairly with each other while recognis- 
ing the just claims to self-interest and self-ad- 
^^ancement for each, when all these are brushed 
aside, and the attitude is that of pure antagonism 
and contest, in which all means to win are resorted 
to, including untruth and deception, then such oc- 
cupations are distinctly low in the scale of human 
activities and, if not directly dishonourable, they 
can lay no claim to honour, and no claim to social 
recognition or regard. Yet, it cannot be denied 
that a great part of industrial and commercial ac- 
tivity is carried on by successful men to whom — 
as a high attribute among their clan, the term 
'cleverness,' or, in America, 'smartness' or — 
sometimes with a slight dash of subdued disap- 
proval, yet hardly even with complete condemna- 
tion — the term 'sharpness' is applied — it cannot 
be denied that activity is not compatible with the 
maintenance of a high conception of honour and 
of the higher social ideals. 

315 



Society will have to recognise that su-ch occu- 
pations are low, and show its disapproval in its 
estimation and treatment of those who pursue 
them. 

Now, it must be admitted that the whole sphere 
of Stock Exchange transactions, in so far as they 
are founded upon what is called 'speculation,' are 
essentially of this nature. The 'bulls' and 'bears' 
must, from the speculative point of view, entirely 
base their success on the ignorance or misjudg- 
ment of their opponents. They are, if not directly 
forced, at least encouraged, to mislead their op- 
ponents about the deciding facts in the regulation 
of value and, at all events, they are by this very 
activity justified in withholding all information 
which would guide the willingness or eagerness to 
purchase or to sell on the part of their commercial 
antagonists. There is but little room for honour 
in such occupation and none whatever for generos- 
ity. And if generosity is an essential element in 
the composition of a man of honour and a gentle- 
man, there is but little opportunity for its develop- 
ment in the mental ethos of him whose whole 
conscious activity in his profession is regulated 
by such a state of social warfare. Now, though 
it could only be a Utopian dreamer who would 
maintain that men enter the struggle of commer- 
cial -competition in order to practice generosity 
towards their competitors and to cultivate honour 
and chivalry in themselves, it can and must 
in sober and deliberate reasonableness be main- 
tained, that no occupation can be good which so 
far from encouraging generosity, requires, and 
stimulates the reverse — namely, -cruelty, ruthless- 
ness and deception. Such an attitude however, 
is the necessary result of that development of 

316 



modern industrial and commercial enterprise 
which is not only concerned with the expansion 
and the prosperous development of one's own busi- 
ness but has, as one of its conscious and direct 
aims, the destruction and ruin or jeopardising of 
an opponent's business. Now, the recognised 
methods developed during the last two genera- 
tions in the commercial and industrial world, es- 
pecially through the formation of the larger 
'trusts' have included attempts thus to eliminate 
nil competition and to destroy and ruin the busi- 
ness of all those who would, and ought to, form 
the natural competitors. That such a practice and 
such an attitude of mind are contra honos mores, 
and shock and revolt the moral consciousness of 
the society in which we live, will be admitted by 
all. 

Here, however, we meet with one of thos fllag- 
rant moral contradictions referred to in the In- 
troduction to expose which has been one of the 
chief aims in the writing of this book. For though 
it is recognised that such prevailing practices are 
condemned as immoral and unsocial by the moral 
consciousness of our age, such is the power of 
wealth, to wlii-ch these practices ultimately lead 
and the power, the consequent social glitter and 
prestige which can be given to the life of those 
possessing this wealth — including even the power 
to make large contributions towards charitable 
or public needs — that ultimately wealth itself, ir- 
respective of its moral or immoral, beautiful or 
hideous, exalted or despicably turgid source, will 
carry with it social recognition and even the con- 
ference of the highest distinction on the part of 
the state. Society as well as social groups and, 
above all, the state, must reconstitute their scale 

317" 



of social valuation. If society and the state are 
as yet too unwieldy and incapable of positively 
affecting and regulating by unmistakable signs, 
recognition, approval and reward, those forms and 
traditions of activity which themselves di- 
rectly tend to the advancement of so-ciety and the 
higher developments of moral standards, they 
ought at least directly to discourage and to com- 
bat those forms which are 'against good policy' 
and which distort and vitiate the recognised 
standards of social morality. 

I have endeavoured elsewhere^ to show the 
whole system of what is 'Called finance, besides be- 
ing dangerous to the individual has had the most 
disastrous effects upon the natural, intelligent and 
normal development of adequate social and moral 
ideals among us. I have further attempted to 
show how the important function of the Trans- 
portation of Capital can, not only be most effec- 
tually carried out by the state, but would also be 
a most effective means of levying taxes for public 
purposes. At the same time it would remove the 
most threatening economical and so-cial danger, 
namely, the natural accumulation of excessive 
capital by individuals and bodies, devoid of the 
responsibility corresponding to the excessive 
power conveyed. Its chief effect upon the ques- 
tion we are now considering is, that it would coun- 
teract the prevalence of most effective false 
ideals which are demoralising every layer and 
group of society in every one of the civilised coun- 
tries of the world. 

But this reform of the Transportation of Capi- 
tal is also required for the transportation of that 



(1) The Political Confession of a Practical IdealiBt. London, 
1911. See Appendix IV. 

318 



less manifest and more evasive form of capital 
in the intellectual, scientific or artistic achieve- 
ments of men in so far as they come under 
the head of patents and -copyright — in fact all 
those forms of potential capital which require in- 
dustrial support to become actual economical 
values. It is here that the state, by means of its 
patent and copyright laws, can do much. But vast 
improvement is required to protect the producer 
of such goods. As it is, the inventor (unreason- 
able as he may often be, unpractical and difficult 
to deal with in his sensitiveness and want of busi- 
ness habits) is at the mercy, not only of the ordi- 
nary business man, but of those evil traditions of 
sharp practice in which all generosity and even all 
fairness are suspended among those men of pure 
business who are to realise and make available 
the invention for industrial and economical pur- 
poses. The share of the inventor in great profits 
is thus generally reduced to an unfair minimum. 
The lead given by Germany in its Patent laws as 
differing from our own, points to the right direc- 
tion in which these laws are to ensure ordinary 
justice and to counteract the distinctly immoral 
practices of modern business. 

But beyond dealing with patents and those in- 
tellectual goods which can be copyrighted, the evil 
traditions of the business of promotion and fin- 
ance, perhaps unknown to the mass of the 
people, are devious, reprehensible and low and are 
recognised and cynically admitted by the business 
world itself concerned in such transactions, to be 
so, when a less definite though negotiable idea or 
some potential capital in the form of a concession 
are offered for exploitation. The current prac- 
tices in this field of business enterprise are most 

319 



reprehensible and display low standards of busi- 
ness honour. I could adduce the evidence of one 
of the most prominent and successful, as well as 
the most truthful representatives of finance in 
England to show how in many spheres of finance 
such low standards prevail.^ The same would 
emphatically apply to the United States ! 

Whatever hopes we may have regarding the 
future action of States, we must lay it down as 
a law of social ethics in order to free ourselves 
from direct contradiction in our daily life, which 
society at large and all individual men who respe-ct 
themselves and who have the general good of so- 
ciety at heart, ought to insist on — namely, that 
no person is to be admitted into an honest and 
honourable group of society whose private or 
whose business honour is tarnished; that wealth 
and power derived from sources and from prac- 
tices opposed to higher commercial honour, and 
even from sources which, if not plainly dishonour- 
able are unsocial in their character, and imply an 
attitude of mind definitely bent on harming or 
ruining the competition that such action should 
not evoke admiration or approval and should not 
confer upon the possessors of them the claim to 
social recognition or regard. 

I have enlarged upon the commercial aspect of 
modern life because it is so dominant in our own 
days, and I have endeavoured thereby to illustrate 
the actual need for the codification of ethics in 
response to the varied requirement of modern soc- 
ial evolution. More directly I have endeavoured 
to show the corresponding need for the modifica- 
tion of our conception of honour, an idea so im- 

(1) See "How I placed a Concession in London," Murray's 
Magazine, June, 1889. 

320 



portant in social ethics, which tiie evolution of our 
life has made necessary. 

The gentleman is thus, before all things, a man 
of honour. He possesses a highly developed and 
refined sense of truth, honesty and justice, tem- 
pered by a strong impulse of generosity whi-ch 
goes ^\dth strength and is the essential element of 
chivalry. The consciousness of superior strength 
must display itself in its attitude towards weak- 
ness. This in no way establishes the rule of the 
weak, 'the ethics of slaves,' and the dominance of 
the inferior; for tlie true gentleman has ultimate 
ideals for society and humanity at large of a dis- 
tinctly aristrocratic chara-cter, that is, the pre- 
dominance of what is best, and will fearlessly work 
towards the realisation of these ideals. He will 
assert his power to this end, though such an as- 
sertion in no way precludes his generosity to- 
wards the weak, whom he will thereby raise and 
not degrade him to the slavery which blind and 
immoral power imposes to the ultimate undoing 
of its own strength and virtue. I repeat the super- 
man vrho is not a gentleman is inconceivable. 

The same sense of -chivalry must show itself in 
the attitude of man towards woman. He will al- 
ways remain conscious of the fact, and manifest 
this consciousness in his actions towards her, that 
he is physically the stronger, and he will not take 
advantage of her weakness. If he does not act 
thus, he will sin, against his sense not only of 
justice, but of fairness and generosity. On the 
other hand, he will not insult and degrade women 
by excluding her from moral responsibility and 
from the di-ctates of reason and pure justice and 
conceive her as an irresponsible being. All that 



321 



has been said of honour and all social virtues ap- 
plies to woman in a form suitable to her nature. 

Besides and beyond being a man of honour and 
responding to the weightier duties of honesty, jus- 
tice and chivalry, the true gentleman will develop 
in himself what, from a mistaken view of the 
needs of social life, may be considered the lighter 
and less important duties. These are the social 
qualities upon which the free intercourse of human 
beings among ea-ch other as social beings depends ; 
and from this point of view — of social intercourse 
and the aggregate daily life of human society — 
they are most important. They are the essential 
elements in man's humanity, in the restricted ac- 
ceptation of that term, whi-ch make him human and 
produce the humanities. The sins most of us com- 
mit, in our ordinary daily life chiefly fall under 
this category, and from this point of view they 
are most serious and become almost heinous. In 
fact, the sins against the humanities are as serious 
as the sins against humanity; they demand no 
less energetic resistance because they are the sins 
nearly all of us are likely to commit. To put it 
epigrammatically, if not with paradoxical exag- 
geration; for most of us it may be as great a 
sin to commit a rudeness, to show a want of con- 
sideration, to shirk answering a letter, to refrain 
from paying a call which might reassure another 
human being of our regard, or avoid wounding 
them by ignoring them, as to refuse a contribu- 
tion to a deserving charity or to visit the ' slums ' 
where, it is more than likely, our presence is not 
required and may do no good. The gentleman 
manifests breeding, consideration and tact; his 
whole nature is harmoniously attuned to respond 
to all the calls from the human beings with whom 

322 



he comes in contact, and to dispel all dis-cords in 
the life which immediately touches him. The 
meaning of this humanity or human-ness, has 
never been more perfectly expounded than in the 
following passage of M. Bergson.^ 

"Each of us has a particular disposition which 
he owes to nature, to habits engrafted by educa- 
tion * * * to his profession * * * to his so- 
cial position. The division of labour which 
strengthens the union of men in all important 
matters, making them interdependent one with 
another, is nevertheless apt to compromise those 
social relations which should give charm and 
pleasure to civilised life. It would seem, then, 
that the power we have of acquiring lasting hab- 
its appropriate to the circumstances of the place 
we desire to fill summons in its train yet another 
which is destined to correct it and give it flexibil- 
ity — a power, in short, to give up for the moment, 
when need arises, the habits we have acquired and 
even the natural disposition we have developed — 
a power to put ourselves in another's place, to in- 
terest ourselves in his affairs, to think with his 
thought, to live in his life; in a word, to forget 
ourselves. These are good manners, which in my 
opinion are nothing but a kind of moral plastic- 
ity. The accomplished man of the world knows 
how to talk to any man on the subject that inter- 
ests him; he enters into the other's views, yet he 
does not therefore adopt them; he understands 
everything, though he does not necessarily excuse 
everything. So we come to like him when we 
have hardly begun to know him ; wfe are speaking 
to a stranger and are surprised and delighted to 
find in him a friend. What pleases us about him 
is the ease with which he descends or rises to our 



(1) Quoted from the Moniteur du Puy-de-D6me, Aug. 5, 1885, 
in Henri Bergson, An Account of Life and Philosophy, by Algot 
Rule and Nancy Margaret Paul, p. 10. 

323 



level, and, above all, the skill with which he con- 
veys the impression that he has a secret prefer- 
ence for us and is not the same to everybody else. 
Indeed, the characteristic of this man of consimi- 
mate breeding is to like all his friends equally 
well and each of them more than all the rest. 
Consequently our pleasure in talking to him is not 
without a trace of flattered vanity. We may say 
that the charm of his manners is the charm belong- 
ing to everything that ' Good manners are the 
grace of the mind.' Like the manifestation of 
bodily grace they evoke the idea of limitless 
adaptability; they suggest too that this adapt- 
ability is at our service and that we cannot count 
upon it. Both, in short, belong to the order of 
things that have a delicately balanced equilibrium 
and an unstable position. A mere touch would 
reverse that equilibrium and send them at once 
into an opposite state. Between the finest man- 
ners and an obsequious hypocrisy there is the 
same distance as between the desire to serve men 
and the art of using them in our service * * * 
The balance is not easy to keep. We need tact, 
subtlety, and above all a respect for ourselves and 
for others. 

''Beyond this form of good manners, which is 
no better than a talent, I can conceive another 
which is almost a virtue * * * There are timid 
and delicate souls who, because they mistrust 
themselves, are eager for approbation, and desire 
to have their vague sense of their own desert up- 
held by praise from others. Is this vanity or is it 
modesty? I do not know. But whereas the self- 
confident man annoys us by his determination to 
impose on everyone his own good opinion of him- 
self, we are attracted by those who anxiously 
await from us that favourable verdict on their 
worth which we are willing to give. A well-timed 
compliment, a well-deserved eulogy, may produce 

324 



in these delicate souls the effect of a sudden gleam 
of sunlight on a dreary landscape. Like the sun 
it will bestow new life, and may even transform 
into fruit, blossoms that without it would have 
withered untimely. It takes up its dwelling in 
the soul and gives it warmth and support, inspir- 
ing that self-confidence which is the condition of 
joy, bringing hope into the present and offering 
an earnest of success to come. On the other hand 
a careless allusion or a word of blame, uttered by 
those in authority, may throw us into that state 
of black discouragement in which we feel discon- 
tented with ourselves, weary of otners, and full 
of distaste for life itself. Just as a tiny crystal 
dropt into a saturated solution summons to itself 
the immense multitude of scattered molecules 
and makes the bubbling liquid change suddenly 
into a mass of solids, so, at the merest hint of re- 
proach, there hasten from every quarter, from 
the hidden depths of the heart, fears that were 
seemingly conquered, wounds of disillusion that 
were healed over, all the vague and floating 
griefs which did but await the moment when they 
might crystallize together into a compacted mass, 
and press with all their weight upon a soul thence- 
forward inert and discouraged. Such morbid 
sensibility is supposed to be rare because it is 
careful toi hide what it suffers; but who among 
us, even the strongest and best equipped for the 
battle of life, has not known at times the pain of 
wounded self-respect, and felt as though the 
springs of the action he was about to undertake 
were broken within him * * * while at other 
times he was uplifted in joy and a sense of har- 
mony overflowed him, because the right word 
spoken in a happy hour reached that profound in- 
terior chord which can vibrate only when all the 
powers of life thrill in unison. It is some such 
Word that we should know how and when to 

325 



speak; therein lie the heart's good manners — ^the 
good manners that are a virtue. For they argue 
the love of our neighbour and the lively desire to 
win his love; they shew charity at work in the 
difficult domain of a man's self-love, where it is 
as hard to recognize the disease as to have a de- 
sire to heal it. And this suggests to us a general 
definition of good manners, as embodying a re- 
gard for the feelings of others which will enable 
us to make them pleased with both themselves 
and us. Underlying them is a great and real 
kindness, but it may veiy likely remain ineffec- 
tual unless there be joined to it penetration of 
mind, suppleness, the power of making fine dis- 
tinctions and a profound knowledge of tlie human 
heart. 

"Education, while it increases that mental 
flexibility which is a quality dominant in the man 
of the world, enables the best among us to ac- 
quire knowledge of the hearts of men, whereby 
kindliness is rendered skilful and becomes the 
good manners of the heart. This our forefath- 
ers recognised when they termed the studies of 
the later years of school life the humanities. 
Doubtless they held in remembrance the sweet- 
ness and light coming of long companionship 
with the best minds of all time and so well 
summed up in the Latin word humanities. They 
had in mind also the profound knowledge of the 
human heart which may be attained through a 
sympathetic study of the classics and which, add- 
ing penetration to charity, gives it power to move 
freely along the thousand byways of sensitiveness 
and self-love. Perhaps too they had in mind that 
high self-control with which men who have read 
much and thought much * * * give utterance 
even to their most cherished theories, their deep- 
est convictions. This again is yet another form 
of good manners * * *. 

326 



"There is a way of expressing our opinions 
without giving offence; there is an art which 
teaches us to listen, gives us a desire to under- 
stand, enables us to enter on occasion into the 
mind of others — in short, to exhibit in discussions, 
even those on politics, religion and morals, the 
courtesy too often reserved for trivial and indif- 
ferent matters. Wliere this courtesy is main- 
tained it seems to me that divisions are less acute 
and disputes less bitter * * * But such respect 
for the opinions of others is not to be acquired 
without sustained effort; and I know no more 
powerful ally in the overcoming of that intoler- 
ance which is a natural instinct then philosophic 
culture. Aristotle said that in a republic where 
all the citizens were lovers of knowledge and 
given to reflection they would all love one an- 
other. He did not mean by this, I take it, that 
knowledge puts an end to dispute, but rather that 
dispute loses its bitterness and strife its intensity 
when lifted into the realm of pure thought — into 
the world of tranquility, measure and harmony. 
For the idea is friendly to the idea, even to the 
contrary idea * * *" 

The direct cultivation of the moral or social 
side of our nature is supplemented, and strength- 
ened, by intellectual culture. Besides its direct 
aim to fit us for some definite task which in our 
adult life we are to fulfil and thus to make us 
specialists in some definite work, the aim of all 
education must be to develop the humanities in 
us, to strengthen and to refine our intelligence, 
our appreciation of truth, our taste, and, above 
all, what we can best call our intellectual sympa- 
thies. Education must produce this intellectual 
sympathy to such a degree, that, without becom- 
ing a specialist in every department of mental ac- 

327 



tivity or, on the other hand, a pretentious socialist 
or superfi'cial dabbler, the gentleman can enter 
into all intellectual pursuits and sympathise with 
their aims, their achievements and the methods 
which lead to them; so that as a true citizen of 
the spiritual world he may say: eques sum; nihil 
intelligibile a me alienum puto. We must always 
remember that, necessary and important for the 
advancement of human life as the production of 
the specialist may be, the ideal of the human be- 
ing is the harmonious and complete development 
of the humanity within man, which includes, or 
rather means above all things, the spiritual life 
and achievements of mankind.^ In so far as he is 
a specialist he sacrifices something of his human- 
ity and, as he is an organic and not a mechanical 
being, he must rectify this defective influence of 
his specialist activity. By training and discipline 
in the humanistic side of his nature he restores 
the normal and complete balance of the humanity 
within him. Education whi-ch exclusively aims at 
the production of the specialist would destroy its 
own end in the interest of humanity were it to 
succeed. I have already touched upon this ques- 
tion as regards the practical activity in our in- 
stitutions of elementary edu-cation. It is most im- 
portant also to bear this question in mind when 
we consider our highest educational institutions, 
our universities. 

These universities have a clearly recognisable 
twofold sphere, towards each of which their exist- 
ence and their activity tend, namely the imper- 
sonal and the personal aspect of university work. 
The impersonal aspect is the more important; 



(1) See my paper on Specialisation, A morbid Tendency of our 
Age, Minerva. Eome, 1880. 

328 



and it depends upon the regulation and co-ordina- 
tion of studies whether, after fulfilling its im- 
personal duties, it cannot be made as well to 
respond adequately to the personal needs. In 
this impersonal aspect universities are institu- 
tions in which the highest pursuits of pure science 
and research are carried on, irrespective of im- 
mediate practical application or use from the ma- 
terial and economic point of view and even from 
the educational point of view. They are to ad- 
vance pure knowledge in its highest form with 
the most effective concentration upon this one 
great task, and thus they will advance the oomr 
munity, the state and humanity towards the ideal 
goal of universal progress. In doing this they 
will most effectively increase the volume of truth 
and of human culture and thereby furnish the 
material for the increase of the humanities, when 
the results of such work penetrate into the ac- 
tual life of the communities and of the individuals 
who compose them. Moreover, the pure and con- 
centrated spirituality of such effort, and the at- 
mosphere which emanates from it, will of them- 
selves be of the greatest disciplinary and educa- 
tional value in the composition of a cultured in- 
dividual. I have once ventured to put the differ- 
ence between the school and the university into 
an epigram: *'A school is scientific because it is 
educational; a university is educational because 
it is scientific."^ Even if there were no students 
to benefit by the teaching of a university, its su- 
preme purpose in a civilised community would 
remain as the living centre for the advancement 
of science. 



(1) The Ideal of a University. North American Review, Sep- 
tember, 1903; The Study of Art in Universities, 1896. 

329 



On the other hand, the directly personal and 
educative use of a university is not excluded by 
this recognition of its impersonal aims. The men 
whom it trains to carry on this lofty and neces- 
sary work, are not prepared or improved for their 
supreme task by sacrificing their humanity; and 
those who are not destined in after life to grasp, 
hold and keep alight the torch of pure science as 
kindled in the universities, will be all the more 
complete in their intellectual development and 
more fitted to perform their several functions in 
society, by having dwelt for one comparatively 
short period of their life in this lofty and atten- 
uated atmosphere of pure and thorough science 
and knowledge. But, I repeat, both the potential 
scientific specialist and the more general worker 
and explorer of things human in life itself, need 
not sacrifice the normal development of the hu- 
manity in them. They will be more efficient, what- 
ever walk of life they pursue, by becoming more 
versatile intellectual beings and more perfect so- 
cial units who can respond to every aspect of 
purely social life : they need in no way sacrifice 
their humanity. They will naturally be the bet- 
ter men of science, and still better statesmen, law- 
yers, merchants, landowners, and even humbler 
workers, by being gentlemen. 

Humanistic studies will always have to be rep- 
resented in the universities, not only for those 
who pursue them, but also for those who wish to 
specialise in even the most abstract and least 
"human" studies. Those who directly pursue the 
humanities and aim at a more general education, 
ought, without falling into pretentious superfic- 
iality, (which the merely popularised study of 
science tends to produce), at least to gain some 

330 



intellectual sympathy with that important de- 
partment of human knowledge called Science in 
the restricted sense, by familiarising themselves 
with the work and the teaching of the great 
science specialists in the universities. They will 
thereby also gain an inestimable mental training 
from living in the atmosphere of such pure and 
exalted work for which their after life will give 
ihem no opportunity. 

The personal aspect of university teaching, 
while thus based above all things on thoroughness 
and concentration of thought, will directly aim at 
the well proportioned co-ordination of all aspects 
of scientific and humanistic endeavour, to pro- 
duce the true man of culture, who, however effi- 
cient in any one specialised department of work, 
will have assimilated the principles and methods 
of the highest intellectual achievement of the age. 
In so far the universities will contribute their 
share towards cultivating in their students the 
ideal of the gentleman. This aim has to my 
knowledge never been put more forcibly and more 
beautifully than by Cardinal Newman when he 

saysi ;! 

"* * * But a University training is the great 
ordinary means to a great but ordinary end; it 
aims at raising the intellectual tone of society, at 
cultivating the public mind, at purifying the na- 
tional taste, at supplying true principles to popu- 
lar enthusiasm and fixed aims to popular aspira- 
tion, at giving enlargement and sobriety to the 
ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise of 
political power, and refining the intercourse of 
private life. It is the education which gives a 
man a clear conscious view of his own opinions 

(1) "The Idea of a University," by John Henry, Cardinal 
Newman — p. 177. 

331 



and judgments, a truth in developing them, an 
eloquence in expressing them, and a force in 
urging them. It teaches him to see things as they 
are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein 
of thought, to detect what is sophistical, and to 
discard what is irrelevant. It prepares him to fill 
any post with credit and to master any subject 
with facility. It shows him how to accommodate 
himself to others, how to throw himself into 
their state of mind, how to bring before them his 
own, how to influence them, how to come to an un- 
derstanding with them, how to bear with them. 
He is at home in any society, he has common 
ground with every class ; he knows when to speak 
and when to be silent; he is able to converse, he 
is able to listen; he can ask a question perti- 
nently, and gain a lesson seasonably, when he has 
nothing to impart himself; he is ever ready, yet 
never in the way; he is a pleasant companion, 
and a comrade you can depend upon; he knows 
when to be serious and when to trifle, and he 
has a sure tact which enables him to trifle with 
gracefulness and to be serious with effect. He 
has the repose of a mind which lives in itself, 
while it lives in the world, and which has re- 
sources for its happiness at home when it cannot 
go abroad. He has a gift which serves him in 
public, and supports him in retirement, without 
which good fortune is but vulgar, and with which 
failure and disappointment have a charm. The 
art which tends to make a man all this, is in the 
object which it pursues as useful as the art of 
wealth or the art of health, though it is less sus- 
ceptible of method, and less tangible, less cer- 
tain, less complete in its result." 

"Whatever the shortoomings in the organisation 
and in the work of our older English universities 
may be from the point of view of the most highly 
specialised study — though these deficiencies have 

332 



continuously been overcome by the reforms in- 
stituted during the last two generations — they 
have retained in them, in their modes of teaching 
and study, and especially in their modes of living, 
as well as in the historical associations clustering 
round their ancient buildings and the genius of 
the place — elements which definitely and directly 
make for the realisation of this particular side in 
the constitution of the gentleman. We may hope 
that no modifications or reforms, intended to sat- 
isfy the more material wants, will counteract or 
weaken these qualities. In fact there is no need, 
in spite of all response to modern demands, that 
ihey should thus be weakened. But in adopting 
from German academic institutions some of the 
best elements in the pursuit of higher university 
work, through the recent reforms introduced in- 
to English universities, the danger has become 
imminent that we may lose the important heri- 
tage of the traditional character of English uni- 
versity education, and that, the tendency may 
have been to disown spiritual possessions of the 
highest value so that we may das Kind mit dem 
Bade auscliiltten to use a homely German say- 
ing. I may be allowed to quote a very instructive 
passage from the essays of Mr. G. Lowes Dickin- 
son,^ which have recently appeared, bearing on 
this point: 

"Scene, a club in a Canadian city; persons, a 
professor, a doctor, a business man, and a travel- 
ler (myself). Wine, cigars, anecdotes; and sud- 
denly, popping uip, like a Jack-in-the-box absurdly 
crowned with ivy the intolerable subject of edu- 
cation. I dio not remember how it began; but T 

(1) Appearances, Culture, pp. 205, seq. 

333 



know there came a point at which, before I knew 
where I was, I found myself being assailed on the 
subject of Oxford and Cambridge. Not, however, 
in the way you may anticipate. Those ancient 
£eats of learning were not denounced as fossil- 
ised, effete, and corrupt. On the contrary, I was 
pressed, urged, implored almost with tears in the 
eye — to reform them! Noi! to let them alone! 

'*For heaven's sake keep them as they are! 
You don't know what you've got, and what you 
might lose ! We know ! We 've had to do without 
it ! And we know that without it everything else 
is of no avail. We bluster and brag about educa- 
tion on this side of the Atlantic. But in our heart 
of hearts we know that we have missed the one 
thing needful, and that you, over in England, 
have got it.' " 

'' 'And that one thing?' 

*' 'Is Culture! Yes in spite of Matthew Ar- 
nold, Culture, and Culture, and always Culture.' 

'' 'Meaning by Culture?' 

" 'Meaning Aristotle instead of Agriculture, 
Homer instead of Hygiene, Shakespeare instead 
of the Stock Exchange, Bacon instead of Bank- 
ing, Plato instead of Paedagogics! Meaning in- 
tellect before intelligence, thought before dexter- 
ity, discovery before invention ! Meaning the only 
thing that is really practical, ideas ; and the only 
thing that is really human, the Humanities!' 

"Eather apologetically, I began to explain. At 
Oxford, I said, no doubt the Humanities still hold 
the first place. But at Cambridge they have long 
been relegated to the second or the third. There 
we have schools of Natural Science, of Econ- 
omics, of Engineering, of Agriculture. We have 
even a Training College in Paedagogics. Their 
faces fell, and they renewed their passionate ap- 
peal. 

" 'Stop it,' they cried. 'For heaven's sake, 

334 



stop it! In all those things we've got you 
skinned alive over here ! If you want Agriculture, 
go to Wisconsin ! If you want Medicine, go to the 
Rockefeller Institute ! If you want Engineering, 
go to Pittsburg ! But preserve still f oir the Eng- 
lish-speaking world w^hat you alone can give! 
Preserve liberal culture ! Preserve the Classics ! 
Preserve Mathematics ! Preserve the seed ground 
of all practical invention and appliances ! Pre- 
serve the integrity of the human mind!" 

"Interesting, is it not! These gentlemen, no 
doubt, were not typical Canadians. But they 
were not the least intelligent men I have met on 
this continent. And when they had finally 
landed me in my sleeping-berth in the train, and I 
was left to my own reflections in that most un- 
comfortable of all situations, I began to consider 
how odd it was that in matters educational we are 
always endeavouring to reform the only part of 
our system that excites the admiration of for- 
eigners. 

"I do not intend, however, to plunge into that 
controversy. The point that interests me is the 
view of my Canadian friends that m America 
there is no ' culture. ' And, in the sense they gave 
to that term, I think they are right. There is no 
culture in America. There is instruction; there 
is research; there is technical and professional 
training ; there is specialisation in science and in- 
dustry ; there is every possible application of life, 
to purpose and ends; but there is no life for its 
own sake. Let me illustrate. It is, I have read, 
a maxim of American business that 'a man is 
danmed who knows two things.' 'He is almost 
a dilettante. ' It was said of a student, * He reads 
Dante and Shakespeare'! 'The perfect profes- 
sor,' said a College President, 'should be willing 
to work hard eleven months in the year.' These 
are straws, if you like, but they show the way 

335 



the wind blows. Again you will find, if you travel 
long in America, that you are suffering from a 
kind of atrophy. You will not, at first, realise 
what it means. But suddenly it will flash upon 
you that you are suffering from lack of conversa- 
tion. You do not converse; you cannot; you can 
only talk. It is the rarest thing to meet a man 
who, when a subject is started, is willing or able 
to follow it out into its ramifications, to play with 
it, to embroider it with pathos or with wit, to pene- 
trate to its roots, to trace its connections and af- 
finities. Questions and answer, anecdote and jest 
are the staple of American conversation; and, 
above all, information. They have a hunger for 
positive facts. And you may hear them hour af- 
ter hour rehearsing to one another their travels, 
their business transactions, their experience in 
trains, in hotels, on steamers till you begin to feel 
you have no alternatives before you but murder 
or suicide. An American broadly speaking, 
never detaches himself from experience. His 
mind is embedded in it; it moves wedged in fact. 
His only escape is into humour; and even his hu- 
mour in but a formula of exaggeration. It ap- 
plies no imagination, no real envisaging of its ob- 
ject. It does not illuminate a subject, it extin- 
guishes it, clamping upon every topic the same 
grotesque mould. That is why it does not really 
much amuse the English. For the English are 
accustomed to Shakespeare, and to the London 
cabby. 

''This may serve to indicate what I mean by 
lack of culture. I admit, of course, that neither 
are the English cultured. But they have culture 
among them. They do not, of conrse, value it; 
the Americans, for aught I know, value it more; 
but they produce it, and the Americans do not. I 
have visited many of their colleges and univer- 
sities, and everj^where, except perhaps at Har- 

336 



vard — unless my impressions are very much at 
fault — I have found the same atmosphere. It is 
the atmosphere known as the 'Yale spirit,' and 
it is very like that of an English Public School. 
It is virile, athletic, gregarious, all-penetrating, 
all-embracing. It turns out the whole university 
to sing rhythmic songs and shout rhj'thmic cries 
at football matches. It praises action and sniffs 
at a speculation. It exalts morals and depresses 
intellect. It suspects the solitary persom th€ 
dreamer, the loafer, the poet, the prig. This at- 
mosphere, of course exists in English universi- 
ties. It is imported there from the Public 
Schools. But it is not all-pervading. Individu- 
als and cliques escape. And it is those who es- 
cape that acquire culture. In America no one 
escapes, or they are too few to count. I know 
Americans of culture, know and love them ; but I 
feel them to be lost in the sea of philistinism. 
They cannot draw together, as in England, and 
leaven the lump. The lump is bigger, and they 
are fewer. All the more honour to them ; and all 
the more loss to America." ^ 



(1) I cannot agree in this respect with W. Dickinson 
in his opinion of the American people to this exclusive domi- 
nance — to the American. No doubt the spirit of pure com- 
mercialism — especially of finance and company-promoting — is 
thus essentially opposed to Culture and higher moral refinement. 
Wherever it dominates it must have this effect upon the com- 
munity. B»it things must have changed greatly within the last 
twenty or thirty years, if there no longer exists in America a 
distinctly and admittedly leading group of sf>ciety in most of 
the great centres, which is thoroughly representative of culture 
and of high ideals. I may be pardoned for recording my own 
personal experience as far as it concerns friends no longer 
living. My various visits to America during the 80's and 90'3 
of the last century led me then to the conviction that in no 
European country — in none of the capitals where, by good 
fortune, I was throwTi in contact with people of every class, 
especially those who could claim and really possessed, culture 
and refinement — was the cultured tone as high, the manners 
as good, and the conversation as brilliant, impersonal and un- 
material, as in some of the houses in America where it also was 
my good fortune to be a guest. I recall with admiration and 
delight the intercourse with members of the "Thursday Club" 
in Boston, at the house of the late Martin E. Brinmer, where 

337 



We all know and value the type of man for 
whom Mr. Dickinson here pleads. And though 
our German detractors, (whose educational sys- 
tem also fails in this very respect) or those who 
know us not, charge us with moral degeneracy, I 
am justified in claiming, that, among the vast 
mass of young men who study in our unversities 
and issue from them, a large number possess 
and to a great degree realise, such ideals of high- 
er education on the moral and intellectual side. 

There is, however, one aspect in which, from 
the very seriousness with which they uphold 
these ideals, they appear to me to neglect or wil- 
fully to ignore, other aspects which go to the 
making of the gentleman. In fact, as an illustra- 
tion of the error into which they fall — the very 
term gentleman might be obnoxious and repuls- 

with men like Lowell, Charles Eliot Norton, Dr. O. Wendell 
Holmes, Mr. Ticknor and Mr. Coolidge, and many others, and 
with women who in every respect were their equals, the con- 
versation and the general unobtrusive atmosphere of culture, 
as well as the exquisite manners of these "men and women of 
the world" surpassed anything I had met with in any of the 
European capitals. Moreover, these social entertainments took 
place in settings of refinement and taste which blended the best 
of the old world with that of the new. (Mr. Howell's novel. 
The Rise of Silas Laphum, gives a picture of such true refine- 
ment in the Cory family.) The same applied to the homes of 
the late Mr. Schermerhorn, members of the Draper family, not 
to mention the literary and artistic centres of the late George 
William Curtis, and of the late Mr. R. W. Gilder and to the 
studio of the sculptor St. Gaudens in New York; to the salons 
of the late Mr. S. Gray Ward, John Hay, Francis Adams in 
Washington; while I had reason to believe that in the West, 
notably in such centres as St. Louis, there existed circles in 
which intellectual and social ideals were manifest and dominant. 
All this may have altered within the last twenty years — I 
cannot judge. But I can hardly believe that such traditions 
would vanish so soon. Still sadder would it be if such leaders 
of men were not recognised as the leaders of American society, 
looked up to and admired by the American people at large; and 
if in their stead the possessors of mere wealth, whose ambition 
was the stage-glitter of tinsel social prominence designed for 
the publicity of a degraded and personal public press, had by 
their action entirely superseded the older traditions and were 
now to direct the social taste, ambitions, and ideals of the 
American people. 

338 



ive to them or unwortliy of serious consideration. 
In the eagerness and the moral singleness of pur- 
pose with which they pursue their lofty ideals of 
life, they may develop in themselves and in their 
views les defauts de leurs qualites. They may 
spurn in theory and neglect in practice the claims 
to serious attention of the lighter social virtues 
for which I claim the most weighty moral justifi- 
cation and most important social consideration. 
I mean the amenities and graces of life, the con- 
formity to the traditions and customs of refined 
living and breeding, which society in the course 
of civilisation has with much labour after many 
centuries evolved. In one word they have not 
'* cultivated good manners." In fact, they often 
have no manners at all, and do not know, what 
good manners are. As they know — and rightly 
too — that they are superior in their mentality and 
in their lives to the majority of people with low 
ideals or no ideals at all, they imagine themselves 
superior to well-mannered people and above the 
established customs and traditions of good breed- 
ing. They need not pay a visit, drop a card, 
though this be the well-founded, ultimately highly 
moral, custom of the country. They need not 
greet a friend or recognise an acquaintance with 
the established form of salute^ open the door for 
a lady, enter into the spirit of ordinary conversa- 
tion — in short do their share to contribute to the 
refined and smoothly running course of social 
life; — until they really become boors, ignorant, 
awkward and banausic^ — in outward, apparent 
life as far removed from the habits and conduct 
of the gentleman (of old as possible. The sins of 
omission and commission which the yokel man- 
ifests from ignorance, they almost assert from 

339 



conviction; until their habits of life become as 
low as his, and the collective tone becomes the 
same — the only difference between them being 
that the one's chief work in life is hoeing man- 
gold wurzels and the other's, digging at pure 
thought and, perhaps, paring epigrams. We may 
revolt against the tyranny of social traditions and 
conventions when once they have lost their mean- 
ing and have become stereotyped or died or are 
even associated with social injustice. But so long 
as no such evil effects attach to them they main- 
tain their validity and importance. At all events, 
as direct and outward expressions of the higher 
art of social life, they are essential to the ad- 
vancement of society and civilisation. The dead 
and stereotyped and malignant form ought to be 
modified and replaced by new forms which truly 
express the consensus of opinion in response to 
this art of social living. To maintain and to cul- 
tivate and to advance good manners, be it that 
they tend to avoid wounding the sensitiveness of 
those with whom we live, or that they positively 
increase their self-esteem, or even give pleasure 
by their inherent grace and kindliness, is a para- 
mount duty for every cultured social being, and 
is in no way exclusive of loftiness of moral pur- 
pose or efficiency of concentrated life-work. 

Even to bestow proper care upon outer ap- 
pearance in the form of dress, need in no way 
inhibit or impair our work, and our sincerity and 
efficiency in the more serious aspects of life. On 
the other hand, it is a constant and positive ex- 
pression of regard to those about us to show such 
attention to our own personal appearance. And 
by this reference to the question of dress I in no 
way mean that the direct application of higher 

340 



and absolute aesthetic principles, in adopting the 
standards and the taste of the ancient Greeks or 
the people of the glorious Italian Renaissance, 
will respond to the need for which I am pleading, 
especially if these should be in direct contrast to 
the ruling standards of taste evolved by modern 
times and our immediate age. They would thus 
only accentuate militant originality, or rather ec- 
centricity, and the protest against reasonable tra- 
ditions and good manners as established in our 
own days.^ 

I assert, without exaggeration or paradox ; but, 
on the contrary, with a full recognition of the 
ethical purpose of the subject with which we are 
dealing, that the custom prevailing in England 
in almost every class, of washing, and of brush- 
ing up or changing one's dress before sitting 
down to a meal, has produced more good moral 
and social effects than the superficial observer is 
likely to admit. I would seriously urge that this 
custom should not be allowed to die out, and 
should on the contrary be maintained and en- 
couraged in family life. It is a great national 



( 1 ) The claims to conformity in the lighter usages and 
amenities of life were most forcibly brought home to me by the 
late Paul Rajon. He was one of the most successful and leading 
etchers in France, of the last generation. In appearance, man- 
ners and dress, nothing obtruded his artistic vocation ; he might 
have been a professional man, or a man of affairs, or a "man 
of leisure or refinement." One day, while I was with him in 
his beautiful studio in Paris, there arrived a young artist, who 
wished to show his work to the master-etcher for criticism. The 
young man was dressed in the ultra-artistic or Bohemian fashion : 
enormous felt hat, fluttering tie, Wertherian cloak, which he 
wore with an assertion of originality and non-conformity. But 
it appeared that his work was most common-place. Rajon 
carefully examined alternately the work and the attire of the 
young man, and at last said: "Voiis est-il jamais arriv^ de 
penser, qu'il faut s'habiller comme tout le monde et peindre 
comme personne?" The social frondeur — and this is generally 
the case in matters far beyond dress — evidently painted like 
everybody and dressed like nobody. 



341 



asset. With those of comparative affluence, 
dressing for dinner and for the life of leisure in 
evening, has far reaching beneficent conse- 
quences and can in no way be combatted on the 
grounds of undue expenditure, be it in time or in 
money. I can recall how, many years ago, George 
Eliot, while depicting graphically some of the un- 
gainly effects and aspects of the British Sunday 
in country and town, dwelt with eloquence and 
vehement insistence upon the important moral 
and social effect of ''Sunday clothes" and especi- 
ally the changing from working costumes to bet- 
ter dress. "The labourer hesitates to use coarse 
language when he has his best coat on" were her 
words. 

I would, therefore, urgently plead that all ser- 
iously minded men and women should realise 
their responsibility in upholding and cherishing 
the Art of Living in all its forms, and in develop- 
ing in themselves the social amenities and graces 
vrhich are inseparable from our ideal of the gen- 
tleman. In his perfect realisation he may be 
rarely met with, but he does exist among us. 

"How many who have inner nobility and re- 
finement of taste with outer grace of demeanour, 
considerateness, and tact; whose intellectual edu- 
cation embraces, at least as regards their sym- 
pathies, all the varied spheres of noble mental 
effort; whose moral culture is so deep and true 
that they can afford to be light and tolerant on the 
surface of social conduct without calling in the 
need of the force-pumps, bucketing up priggish- 
ness from the heavy deposit of principles at the 
bottom of their conscience ; whose nature is strung 
so that all the notes are true in tone ; from whom 
we have never received a jar from their blank 
limitation or from tortuous malformation of 

342 



taste, from meanness or grossness — a sudden dis- 
appointment or shock to the best cravings within 
us putting us out of tune for a whole day, like 
an ugly ipicture or a discordant sound? How 
many have yon met, of whatever class of society 
you may think? And the wrestling for distinc- 
tion and display pointed out by M. Leroy-Beau- 
lieu, the grossness of the parvenu he refers to, 
have you not found some, if not all of them, among 
your closest friends of the highest social distinc- 
tion! They may sometimes be found among 
dukes and nobles whose ancestors go back to the 
crusaders and among princes of the blood. ThacK- 
eray has seen them and has immortalised them. 
An act such as the attempt to write a book de- 
fending a people from abuse, as has been written 
by M. Leroy-Beaulieu, the tone of fairness, re- 
finement, and depth of sympathy with which it is 
pervaded brings me nearer in mind to the picture 
of a true gentleman, sans peur et sans reproche, 
than many a glaring act of valor, or a life passed 
among the most refined brilliancy of modern so- 
cial life. 

"A gentleman is, after all, as has so often been 
said, made by the kindness of the heart, the ten- 
derness within strength, the alma gentil. Tact la 
the rapid and true action directed by ready sym- 
pathy, which keeps us from saying or doing what 
will harm or cause discomfort to our neighbors — 
it is loving-kindness and unselfishness carried in- 
to our slightest actions. Having these, any man 
may become a gentleman, however favourable the 
circumstances. But with them and with intellec- 
tual refinement and culture, put a boy into noble 
social surroundings, and he will become an orna- 
ment to every salon into which he steps. But take 
care that you do not remind him of the fact that 
he is tolerated! 

''Here lies the difficulty. No man can display 

343 



these social qualities, nor can he avoid some ap- 
pearance of snobbishness, if by your action you 
make the social ground upon which he stands and 
moves unsteady, and rob him of the grace and 
lightness of intercourse. He will be bound to 
become assertive in some direction and deprived 
of his social ease. ' ' ^ 

The gentleman thus conceived is the highest so- 
cial being. The practical necessity and, certainly, 
the practical advantage, of clearly establishing 
this ideal and of forcing it into the consciousness 
of all members of a community as such an ideal, 
cannot be overestimated. For no moral education 
is effective unless a type of highest morality can 
be clearly brought to the consciousness of thosb 
who are to be affected. I may be allowed to recall 
my own youthful experience, and at the same time 
to record my debt of gratitude to those schoolmas- 
ters and schoolmistresses in America — not to 
mention the earliest home-teaching in that coun- 
try — who constantly held up before the young peo- 
ple some such ideal of a gentleman, be it positively 
stimulating ambition to live up to it by self-.Te- 
pression and by definite courageous assertion ; or, 
negatively, by conveying their condemnation of a 
mean or unworthy act by denying to the delin- 
quent the right to consider himself a gentleman. 
The appeal is here chiefly made, not so much di- 
rectly to stern morality and to the conscious 
weighing and balancing of moral injunctions as 
to our aesthetic faculties, to our taste, from 
which admiration or disgust naturally emanate. 
And it is in this aesthetic form that moral teach- 
ing may perhaps be most effective — not by an ap- 
peal to duty and theory, but by an appeal to taste. 



(1) "The Jewish Question"— ip. 329. 

344 



No moral discipline, moreover, has become thor- 
oughly efficient, until it has been absorbed into 
man's natural tastes and preferences; as we may 
also say that no general social laws have become 
efficient, until they have been transformed into ad- 
mitted social traditions and customs, or even, un- 
til they have become fashionable, and are classi- 
fied in the prevailing vernacular as ' ' good or bad 
form." ^ 

All these particular and later ramifications of 
our social duties, however, are summarized in and 
naturally lead to the establishment of wider social 
ideals, in which the intercourse between human 
beings, productive of material good, tends to the 
advance of all social groups towards such final 
ideals, and facilitates and accelerates the domin- 
ance of what is best. 

In this ascending scale we thus rise beyond the 
individual and the larger or smaller communities, 
as well as the social groupings and classes, to the 
State and, finally, to humanity as a whole. 



(1) See Parent's Review, March, 1910. Address by the author 
on The Aesthetic Element in the Education of the Individual 
and of the Nation. 



345 



CHAPTER III 

Duty to the State 

As we have seen, our own Anglo-Saxon concep- 
tion of the State — the French and the Americans 
have virtually the same^ — differs essentially from 
that practically accepted in Germany now, and 
theoretically upheld and developed by those poli- 
ticians, historians and philosophers who have led 
the German mind since the last generation. The 
leading individual exponent of the German con- 
ception may be considered to be Henrich von 
Treitschke. In the connotation which they give 
to the idea of State, it is an entity final and self- 
existent, from which all individual rights and so- 
cial rights are derived and to which they are ab- 
solutely subordinated. The State must thus rep-^ 
resent the ruling powers that be, and it is difficult 
to see how the rights and claims of individual 
thinkers or social groups, or even of the majority 
of its citizens, can successfully assert themselves 
against these powers, and how any changes, modi- 
fications, and reforms can be introduced while the 
ruling powers representing the State are opposed 
to them, without violence or revolution. If the 
authority of the State is self-sufficient, and if the 
social groups and classes derive their rights from 
it and their power is strictly limited by it, there is 
no rational, legal or moral right by which the citi- 
zens can in their turn oppose the will and the au- 
thority of the State. In our conception of the 
State, on the contrary, its authority is entirely 

346 



based upon the rights, as well as the duties, of the 
individuals, the groups, the communities, the 
classes and occupations, and all that constitutes 
the nation. The State and its authority, its laws, 
its constitution, may thus change, and ought, in a 
developing State constantly to change, in re- 
sponse to, and in harmony with, changes in the in- 
dividual, communal and social life of its citizens. 
This life alters through the development of the 
body of citizens themselves, as things organic 
grow and develop so long as they live; and fur- 
ther as such changes and developments are di- 
rectly caused by the conditions of life surrounding 
these organic bodies, physical and moral — by all 
that may be called environment. The whole pol- 
itical activity of a modern democracy thus directly 
expresses itself in legislation and administration 
which it assigns to its government, by which act it 
confers supreme authority and powder upon the 
State as the final unit. 

Therefore, in such States revolution and an- 
archy have no place, no moral or legal grounds 
for existence. The citizen is bound to obey the 
laws which are made by him ultimately ; and if he 
finds these laws unjust or inadequate to the ac- 
tual needs of life, or unsuited to the changing con- 
ditions which the advance of human society has 
produced, the constitution provides him with the 
means of enforcing his will by himself directing 
the authority of the State, and not by destroying 
it. On the other hand, the State itself must al- 
ways remain in touch with the individual life of 
its citizens. From this the State draws the very 
right of its existence. It must summarise in a 
higher and purer and more unimpeachable form, 
not only the physical and grossly tangible aspects 

347 



of life, but also the morality of these smaller units 
within its wider orbit. The State is never to pre- 
sent a lower, but rather a higher, morality. It is 
not only concerned with the material needs of the 
population but with its higher and spiritual needs 
as well. It is to uphold and to intensify individual 
honour, being itself the source of all public hon- 
our. It has the supreme and all-important func- 
tion of establishing and confirming the moral val-' 
ues for all its citizens, for all communities, for all 
public bodies, and for social life as well. 

Therefore, our moral consciousness must 
clearly consider and establish our duties to the 
State, both the passive and the active duties of 
citizens. 

The first duty is obedience. The fact of the 
legislative power of the State having been derived 
from the body of individual citizens does not les- 
sen, but increases the need and the justification 
for obedience to these laws. Nor does the knowl- 
edge of such an origin diminish the claim to re- 
spect and even reverence towards the democratic 
State as compared to the absolutist State. The 
modem democrat and constitutionalist can repeat 
the words of Louis XIV: "L etat c'est moi." But 
realising thus that he individually is a part, how- 
ever small, of this supreme authority, and that it 
represents the totality of the whole mass of citi- 
zens, beings like himself, need surely not dimin- 
ish his reverence and respect for such a supreme 
unit as compared with the authority, self-invested 
or supposedly conferred by the Grace of God, to 
the person of a Grand Monarque. Nor will intel- 
ligent and self-respecting human beings be less 
inclined to offer unlimited obedience when their 
own free will has been called into activity in the 

348 



establishment of it, in preference to the absolute 
command imposed upon them from without by 
one human being. In addition to such obedience 
and respect the citizen can even feel affection and 
love for the impersonation of the State, culminat- 
ing in the most intense and self-sacrificing 
patriotism. When called upon, he will be pre- 
pared to sacrifice his life for his country, his 
president, or for his constitutional king, who rules 
with his direct sanction, as readily as, and even 
more readily, than for the country in the making 
of whose laws he has had no part or for the abso- 
lute monarch whose will is with persistent asser- 
tion imposed upon his own from above. 

This being the case, it is most important that in 
the ethical training of such citizens, not only 
obedience to the law of the land and the authority 
of the State should be constantly impressed upon 
them, so that it becomes an inner habit of mind; 
but also that they should never be allowed or en- 
couraged to look upon the State and its authority 
as outside bodies opposed to their own interests 
and will, whom they may thus readily come to con- 
sider an antagonistic body, or an enemy, until, 
like the proverbial Irishman they are "Agin the 
Government," always ready to oppose or to 
evade authority. Even in countries with a long 
and continuous tradition of personal liberty the 
mass of the people may be inclined to look upon 
the State official as their enemy. Even some of 
the most law-abiding citizens find occasionally 
welling up in them an antagonism to the police, 
the guardians of their own security, ready to 
sympathise with, and even to abet, the pursued 
criminal. This instinct illustrates the survival of 
traditions from the bygone days of tyranny when 

349 



the officers of the law were in fact the enemies of 
the people, imposing upon them the alien will and 
the interests of rulers completely severed from 
them by their position and by the lives they led. 
We are still far removed from that state of poli- 
tical education in which the mass of our citizens, 
even the most educated and affluent, are so imbued 
with the spirit of law and civic morality, that it 
would be impossible for them to wish to evade 
the just payment of the custom dues which, by 
the laws they have sanctioned, the State is bound 
to claim. Even the highly moral and refined mem- 
ber of society who would shrink with horror 
from any manifestly dishonest act, is not fully 
aware of his dishonesty, and may at times even 
exult, when he successfully cheats the Custom 
House official. In the same way, illegally and 
wrongfully to pay the State less taxes than is its 
due, by falsifying the returns of income, in slur- 
ring over accounts, or in yielding to seductive 
self-deception, is a practice to which many of our 
best and most highly trained citizens will have to 
plead guilty. The moral education of our future 
generations must be such, that it will be impos- 
sible for them to establish different standards of 
morality for their dealings with their fellow men 
or with the State and its officials. 

Beside the more passive aspect of our duties to 
the State which lead to obedience and respect for 
its authority, there is the more active sphere of 
immediate duty. We must in every way contrib- 
ute our own individual efforts, however small and 
inappreciable they may be, to make the State 
worthy of obedience, respect, and reverence. We 
must jealously uphold its purity and integrity 
both in its legislative and administrative func- 

350 



tions. We must resent and combat every delin- 
quency of duty on the part of its administrators, 
whether it directly affects us and our interests or 
not. It is indifference to the maintenance of the 
highest standards of purity and efficiency which 
is at once one of the most insidious as well as dis- 
astrous outcomes of liberty in democratic com- 
munities. The less we wish to be dominated by a 
stereotyped, self-assertive, and tyrannical bureau- 
cracy, the move ought we to guard the integrity 
and the efficiency of office, the more ought we to 
make each office worthy of the obedience and re- 
spect which we willingly offer to them collectively 
as our chosen administrators of the law. 

But in a truly democratic and constitutional 
nation the most important and effective function 
of the citizen will always be his power of electing 
his law-making representative. It is here that 
his most distinctive right comes into action, and, 
at the same time, his most imperative responsi- 
bility. The really good citizen is bound to exer- 
cise his function as a voter. It is a singular fact 
how little this supreme responsibility of the citi- 
zen is recognised and, moreover, how often it is 
ignored — in many cases by the very men who pos- 
sess the greatest power of thought, deliberation 
and judgment. In a book on the preliminaries of 
the present war, purporting to give inaccessible 
facts and information derived from the very lead- 
ers in European politics, that popular and success- 
ful author, William le Queux, writes the following 
passage: "Now at the outset, I wish to say that 
I am no party politician. My worst enemy could 
never call me that, I have never voted for a can- 
didate in my life, for my motto has ever been, 
'Britain for the British.' " He claims that all his 

351 



actions have been inspired by true patriotism. 
Moreover, his writings imply that he is qualified 
to judge in matters political. And yet, at the 
same time, he informs us that he has never exer- 
cised that most important function which in a con- 
stitutional country is the chief duty of every citi- 
zen. But there is one saving clause in his state- 
ment, conveyed by the term "party politician." 
All that is implied in the term "party," "party 
politics" and "party politician" make it most 
difficult at times for the conscientious voter to ful- 
fill this primary and supreme duty to the State. 
Singularly enough this difficulty is increased in 
the older and more highly developed democracies 
where the constitutional machinery is most per- 
fect and works most efficiently; where there have 
been generations and even centuries of constitu- 
tional practice, and the principles of freedom and 
self-government are firmly and clearly estab- 
lished. In the younger, and less developed democ- 
racies, less secure in the continuity of their free- 
dom, still influenced by the traditions and sur- 
vivals of more autocratic or tyrannical forms of 
government, these difficulties do not arise to the 
same degree. In such countries there are so many 
parties, often merely representative of different 
leading individuals, that each voter can ade- 
quately and accurately make his choice coincide 
with his own political convictions at each election. 
The more highly organised and firmly established 
democracies, such as Great Britain and the United 
States, however, have developed the two-party 
system; and this twofold division, moreover, has 
implied complete and more or less permanent or- 
ganisation within each party. It is not necessary 
to discuss here whether such organisations of 

352 



party government are essential or desirable. For 
us the fact as it is remains. Yet, though we may 
thus accept it, it does not alter the fact that, as 
regards our political morality, our duty towards 
the State, we ought to do all in our power to make 
our parliamentary vote correspond as completely 
as possible with our political convictions in the 
light of the needs of the nation as they present 
themselves to us at the time. One thing is abso- 
lutely clear and indubitable that we have no 
right to give our vote to the party with which we 
have hitherto been associated if their program or 
platform does not correspond to what, according 
to our best thought and our truest conviction, we 
consider the good of the nation. It is here again 
(as we have seen in Part I of this Book) that a 
misapplied sense of would-be loyalty, unreasoning 
and unguided by the dictates of duty and justice, 
is most vicious in its effect and most destructive 
of our sense of political morality, in fact of all 
morality. The man who is expected to give his 
vote for the best cause and for what he considers 
the crying need of the country, and who will not 
hesitate to relinquish his party when its prin- 
ciples are directly opposed to these, is untruthful 
to himself and to his country and is personally, as 
well as politically, immoral. As we have seen be- 
fore, he will justify his action by professing to 
sacrifice himself for the sake of "loyalty" to the 
party to which he has always belonged, or even 
because his father and grandfather had belonged 
to that party. As if this cringing to the heredi- 
tary or stereotyped authority of fossilised inter- 
ests of the past did not fly in the face of every 
idea of constitutional freedom and of political 
duty, and as though he were not undermining the 

353 



rational and moral bases of all constitutional gov- 
ernment by eliminating the principles of reason 
and justice from the most essential functions of 
national life. This caricatured, and grossly inept 
tyranny of loyalty has been most disastrous in its 
results as it is constantly applied to political lead- 
ers and to parliamentary representatives them- 
selves. In spite of the persistent experience and 
numerous examples in English history, exempli- 
fied by both Disraeli and Gladstone, who changed 
their parties within their political life, a slur, if 
not a deeper stigma, is at once and readily ap- 
plied to every political person who ventures to 
change his party on whatever grounds of con- 
scientious deliberation and conviction. If, how- 
ever, even the politician by profession, in spite of 
the many restraining considerations which the 
nature of the political mechanism brings with it, 
is bound to act up to his convictions, there are far 
fewer deterrent causes which ought to prevent the 
humble elector from conscientiously transferring 
his vote in accordance with his political faith. 
The whole theory of representative government 
rests upon this assumption. The chief difficulty 
which meets us, however, is presented by those 
cases in which we may retain our conformity with 
the main principles of the party to which we 
have hitherto belonged, but for the time 
being differ from it and agree with the 
opposing party on the main issue before 
the country at the time. There can be no 
doubt that in the future — whatever may be urged 
against the system — the machinery for taking a 
referendum on the leading questions of import- 
ance must be evolved. But, meanwhile, what in 
the history of American politics has been called 

354 



the "mugwump" movement will have to become 
more universal and more actively established 
among us. Every thoughtful and conscientious 
citizen ought to be a potential "mugwump. ' ' The 
chief result ^vill at all events be, that the estab- 
lished parties themselves will become more im- 
mediately responsive to the best thoughtful opin- 
ion throughout the country ; that the step from the 
deliberate will and intelligence of the pepole to its 
realisation in practical politics will become 
shorter, and that finally the political party leaders 
themselves, hardened and crystallised in their ob- 
durate, almost bureaucratic, machine-work and 
authority, will be forced to take cognisance of th$ 
thought and judgment of the best and the most 
competent citizens within the nation. No doubt 
the uncertainty and difficulty presented to the 
party rulers to forecast results and marshall their 
forces will be infinitely greater when a large 
body of voters are fluctuating in their opinions 
and political support. But this will only mean, 
that the party will no longer be stereotyped and 
fossilised, ruled by its formal laws and interests ; 
and that, on the other hand, the party leaders 
will have to remain in touch with the true intelli- 
gence and morality of the country, to whom much 
power will be transferred. 

In our fundamental conception of the State and 
its functions we shall less and less limit ourselves 
to the one single aspect of democratic govern- 
ment, namely, the advancement of personal lib- 
erty which, is a purely negative conception of its 
function, circumscribing its activity as far as 
possible so as to avoid all interference with per- 
sonal liberty, until the ideal becomes that of fatal- 
istic laissez faire. It has long since been realised 

355 



that a great part of the function of the State nec- 
essarily means direct interference with personal 
liberty, and that such positive legislation is not 
completely summed up in the final aim of the so- 
called good of the largest number, that it does not 
spell mere opportunism, the adaptation of the 
whole machinery of State to the immediate and 
crying needs ; but that one of the supreme aims and 
objects of the State is the betterment of the lives of 
individuals, as well as of the collective life of hu- 
man society so far as it comes within the range of 
such political influence. The whole sphere of so- 
cial legislation comes under this head. But social 
legislation and administration is not only con- 
cerned with the poor and the helpless, with the 
betterment of the conditions of life of those citi- 
zens who are in direct need of support and guid- 
ance, to sustain life and to save them from the 
brink of abject misery or crime; it is not only 
concerned with what are called the lower classes, 
but with the claims of every class which are to 
be regulated in due proportion and harmony for 
the good of human society as a whole. 

We are but at the initial stages of that political 
development in which the claims of the separate 
social groups, classes and occupations are justly 
recognised and organised. As yet these have only 
been clearly expressed and formulated and 
frankly avowed by what is called the Labour 
Party. But that party will have to realise that, 
like its own claims to recognition and realisation 
of its own corporate body, similar claims can with 
equal justice be urged for the collective represen- 
tatives of other social groups and occupations in 
a fully developed organic society. It will, above 
all, have to realise, that all these claims can and 

356 



must be recognised and harmonised by the 
State; and that such harmony, blending into 
the unity of a well organized, modem State, 
is possible and necessary and does not presuppose 
violent clashing and conflict of interests. Social 
legislation will more and more come to mean the 
direct endeavour of the body politic to advance 
the social life of the community in every direc- 
tion ; to improve the standards of living while im- 
proving the conditions of life, and to approach 
more closely to the rational ideals of what a per- 
fect State and a perfect society ought to be. 

I know that it may be thought that thus to put 
before the practical politicians as a definite aim, 
a spiritual object, directly and practically tending 
towards the advance of humanity in the more m- 
tangible moral spheres, may be considered to be 
Utopian and the theory of a dreamer far removed 
from the actualities of life. But, fortunately, his- 
tory affords numerous and undoubted instances 
in which whole nations have joined in a supreme 
effort to work for, to fight for, and to die for, such 
moral objects. To select but two historical in- 
stances which were of world wide importance and 
called for the greatest sacrifices : The Crusades of 
the Middle Ages and the American Civil War 
stand out most forcibly. No doubt if it can be 
shown that there are many more proximate and 
more material causes for these great upheavals. 
For instance in the American Civil War, the ques- 
tion of federation or confederation and the conse- 
quent divergence of material interests between the 
North and South played a great part. But there 
can equally be no doubt that all these na- 
tions were moved to action and to self- 
sacrifice by the ideals which concerned hu- 

357 



manity at large; the religious faith of the 
Crusaders, and the conviction of the union- 
ists of the North, that slavery was incompatible 
with their higher ideals of humanity. It is not 
Utopian or fantastic to maintain, that every sin- 
gle political act, which interest may dictate and 
opportunism condone, which flies in the face of hu- 
manity, which, as an action of individuals, or the 
State, lowers or retards the advance of humanity, 
is a crime. 



858 



. CHAPTER IV 

Duty to Humanity 

In several earlier passages, dealing with Inter- 
national Relations, Chauvinism and Patriotism 
and with Social Duties, I have already entered 
upon the wider aspect of humanity as well as 
the duties which thus present themselves. But I 
wish now more definitely to summarise these prin- 
ciples here. Through our duty to the state we 
are necessarily made to face our duty to humanity 
at large. Nor will the fulfillment of our duties 
in the narrower spheres, which we have hitherto 
traversed and which have led us through the state 
to the infinitely wider region of humanity, clash 
with these ultimate duties with which they can 
be, and must be, harmonised. The real difficulty 
in the activity of the state and in the relation of 
states to human society as a whole will always 
be to reconcile the due care and regard for the 
mass of the people who require protection and 
support in the conflict of unequal individualities, 
with the encouragement of the strong and higher 
individualities, through whom human society is 
actually advanced and humanity draws nearer to 
its ideals. It is the great problem of reconciling 
socialism with individualism. Such a reconcilia- 
tion is often considered to be hopeless and is given 
up as such. But it is possible, nay necessary ; only 
the two principles apply to different layers of 
human society. The socialistic point of view, in 
which the individual is restrained in deference to 

359 



the rights of existence of all, in which the stronger 
is -checked in his dominating course in order to 
protect and support the weaker, is right, if we 
consider only the weaker members of human so- 
ciety; and it is right that our social legislation, 
the direct intervention of the state into the course 
of human competition, should be in the socialistic 
spirit and should be wholly 'Concerned with the 
poor and the weak. Old Age Pensions and Na- 
tional Insurance are clearly socialistic in char- 
acter, and it is right that the state should thus ful- 
fill one of its primary duties of supporting and 
protecting those who require such support and 
protection. It is equally right, and it will be 
realised still more in the future, that the 
state must protect itself and the commun- 
ity at large against the undue power which, 
owing to the dominant economical -conditions 
and the protection which the state affords, 
tends to come to individuals in such a 
form and to such a degree that it endangers 
the welfare of society and the security of the state 
itself, is, in fact, against 'good policy.' Conges- 
tion of capital into single hands to such a degree 
that the power it affords, without responsibility 
or control, becomes a danger to society, and must 
be checked by the constitutional means which the 
state has at its disposal. As I have previously 
said, I plead for socialism at the top and bottom ; 
but pure individualism in between. Excess of 
wealth and excess of poverty must be checked by 
collective legislation from a collective point of 
view; but, when society is thus secure at its two 
extremes, where the prohibitory action of the state 
is called in to produce such security, full freedom 
must be left to the individual to assert and to 

360 



realise superior powers, through which effort the 
individual and society at large advance and are 
perfected. Within the two extremes of the human 
scale inequality is to be encouraged in order to 
give free scope to moral and intellectual forces. 
Until trade-unions recognise this, their activity 
will be immoral and retrograde. Our motto must 
be: 'Liberty, fraternity and inequality.' Democ- 
racy must never degenerate into ochlocracy. 
Every democracy must be aristocratic in tendency 
and aim ; for with equality of opportunity it must 
encourage the realisation of the best. Socrates, as 
recorded by Plato and by Xenophon, has put the 
point in the simplest and most convincing form 
by the parable of the flute-player who is good and 
useful, and the helmsman who is good and useful ; 
but we do not call in the helmsman to play the 
flute, and we do not entrust the ship to the flute- 
player. 

The claims of the poor and humble, for which 
Christ pleaded can be reconciled with those of the 
superman. As in the moral consciousness of the 
individual, charity and high ambition can and 
must go hand in hand, so in the state the care 
of the poor and feeble, their protection from the 
rapacious onslaught of the strong and grasping, 
all those acts of legislation and administration 
which, not only recognise the lowly and the low- 
est, but ever tend to establish and maintain equal- 
ity of rights, must on the other hand, encourage 
the advan-ce of strong and superior individuals 
and corporate bodies, and raise the standard of 
living and efficiency for society. In so far the state 
will confirm and encourage inequality. All its 
functions will -converge in ultimately raising the 



361 



ideals of humanity. Plato will then be reconciled 
with Christ. 

With the international relations of the state 
and the duties of its citizens as patriots and as 
human beings, I need not deal here, as the subject 
has been treated in the earlier parts of this book. 

B. THE DUTIES WHICH ARE NOT SOCIAL 

AND THE 

IMPERSONAL DUTIES 

Introduction 

In all our ethical considerations hitherto we 
have considered man, if not from the exclusively 
altruistic point of view, at least from the social 
point of view. We have conceived man too ex- 
clusively as Aristotle's social animal fcSov 
ttoKltlkov. If this were the only conception we 
form of man, our ethical system, human morality, 
would be imperfect, if not completely at fault, both 
from a practical as well as a theoretical point of 
view. As a matter of fact both our ethical sys- 
tems, as well as the ethical thought and the pre- 
vailing habit of mind among thinking and con- 
scientious people are defective, because they con- 
ceive man exclusively, or at least too predominant- 
ly, merely as a so-cial being, merely in his rela- 
tion to human society and to his fellow 
men. Our ethical thought thus suffers from 
'Human Provincialism' — or perhaps more proper- 
ly put, the 'provincialism of Humanity.' Our 
philosophy is, in the first place, too social, and, in 
the second place, too psychological. To introduce 
man where he is not needed is false, as it blocks 
the way to the attainment of ultimate truth. If 

362 



this be so, even from the highest philosophical 
point of view, it is also so in the ordinary -course 
of life ; for we do not, even in practice, follow the 
purely social and psychological conception of our 
duties. The labourer who works at a definite task 
does not think of man or the relation of his work 
to man, while he is engaged upon it. Still less 
does the student of higher science allow the 
thought of man to intrude into his search for truth. 
Thus neither practically nor thoretically are we 
guided by this primary conception of man's so'cial 
nature. In fact one of the supreme and most ardu- 
ous tasks of the scientific student and the philoso- 
pher is to discard the personal equation, all 
human bias, the various 'idols' (as Bacon called 
them), which distort and falsify truth and block 
the way to its secure establishment. What we 
really do in practical life and strive to do in the 
life of pure thought is, without considering human 
and social relationships and duties, to perform the 
action and to solve the task we are working at as 
perfectly as it can be performed, and, as men, to 
approach as nearly as we can to the per- 
fect type of the man we ought to be. 
We do this more or less -consciously, and we have 
before our minds more or less clearly this pattern 
or ideal of ourself to live up to. If this is so in 
our life, as we live it from an ethical point of view, 
there is no doubt also that it ought to he so. 

Our ethics would thus not be complete, unless 
we adjust this one-sided exaggeration of its social, 
as well as its psychological, bearing. Man must 
be considered in himself, in his relation to him- 
self, and also to his ideal self ; also as in his rela- 
tion to the world of things, to his actions, functions 



363 



and duties in themselves, irrespective of their 
social bearing. 

Man must also be considered in his relationship 
to nature and to the world, irrespective of the 
definite relationship which these on their part may- 
hold to man and to humanity — he must break 
through the crust or tear the veil, pass beyond 
the restrictive boundaries of 'Humanitarian 
Provincialism.' To put it into philosophical 
terms : his final outlook must not only be psycho- 
logical, but must ultimately lead him to that in- 
tellectual eminence where he can become cosmolog- 
ical, metaphysical and theological — the climax of 
his whole spiritual life being now, as it was in 
the past and as it will be in the future, his religious 
life. The psychologist may remind us that, after 
all, man -can only think as man, neither as a stone 
nor a plant, nor as a being from Mars or any 
other planet, nor as a demi-god. But surely, as 
men, we can and must conceive man, not as a 
purely and exclusively social being — and we con- 
stantly have before us, without in any way appeal- 
ing to our philosophical thought, man's relation 
to nature and to the universe and to infinity. Vast 
as this prospect may appear to us, it will be found 
that it is applied in our ordinary daily life, not 
only by thinkers and leaders of men but even by 
the humblest and most thoughtless among us. 

We have thus, finally, to consider : 1. Our duty 
to ourself ; 2. Our duty in respect of things and 
acts; 3. Our duty to the world and to God. 

In the ethical aspect of this threefold relation- 
ship, we must be guided by Plato. In realising, 
both as regards ourselves, as well as the definite 
functions and activities of man, and finally as re- 
gards our conception of the universe and the ulti- 

364 



mate infinite powers of all, the highest and the 
purest ideals which we can form of each, with 
which we thus establish a relationship, we may 
realise and emphasise our own imperfection and 
our remoteness from such ideals. But, all the same, 
such high mental activity on our part will not end 
in an idle and resultless play of the imagination 
and a dissipation of intellectual energy; but will 
be, and is of the greatest practical value in the 
sober and unfailing guidance of human action to- 
wards the highest ethical goal. 



365 



CHAPTER V 
Duty to Our Self 

This duty to our Self as we here 'Conceive it, 
really means the supreme and constraining power 
which, through the exercise of the imagination, 
an ever-present image of an ideal self has over 
us. Such an active imagination and its power of 
enforcing itself even upon the most sluggish tem- 
perament and understanding is not limited to the 
most highly developed among us, but is the pos- 
session of practically all human beings. In its 
lowest and, perhaps, reprehensible form, it mani- 
fests itself in vanity ; in the higher forms it leads 
to self-respect and practical idealism. It, of 
course, includes, and is to a great extent made up 
of, man's conception of himself as a social being. 
But it occupies the mind and stimulates and guides 
action, not bc'cause of any definite social relation- 
ship, but because of the relationship we hold to 
our Self as a whole, to our own personality, as 
it manifests itself to us in all acts of self-con- 
sciousness. Our vanity, our self-respect, and our 
idealism, are gratified in the degree in which we 
are successful or in which our individual achieve- 
ment, or the wholeness of our personality con- 
forms to the model or pattern, the ideal which 
we form of our Self. 

This even includes the essence of what we call 
conscien-ce. For whether conscience originally 
springs from fear, or assumes a relation to be- 
ings outside and beyond ourselves, its essence 

366 



really is to be found in the dominance which our 
ever present conception of a perfect self has over 
our faltering and imperfect self. The degree of 
the discomfort or pain which conscience may evoke 
in us is measured by the discrepancy between our 
actual self and the image of our perfect self. Far 
more than most people would admit, the effective- 
ness of our imagination in thus appealing to a 
quasi-dramatic instinct in us, in which we are act- 
ing our part, not so much in life's play of which 
' ' all the world 's at stage, ' ' but in that smaller mic- 
rocosmical world (infinitely great to us), circum- 
scribed by our actual and better self, in which, 
under the promptership of imagination, the two 
selves are at once actors and audience. Far more 
than we would admit are we thus always acting 
a part, evoking alternate applause and reproval, 
and fashioning our course of action towards good 
or evil. And if this is actually the case it is right 
that it should be so ; and what may in one aspect 
feed our lowest vanity, in another produces our 
highest aspirations and leads us onward and up- 
ward to the noblest and best that is in man. 

It may even be held— and I for one do hold- 
that the purest and, perhaps, the noblest guide to 
conduct and to the rule of the highest morality is 
to be found in the establishment of such a rela- 
tionship to our self in a direct and effective in- 
tensity of moral guidance. When our moral ef- 
forts—be it in the repression of the lower instincts 
and desires or in the exertion of all our energy 
and power towards work and deeds that are 
good— are wholly independent of a relationship to 
others, to their regard or approval, but are deter- 
mined by our self-respect and self-realisation, they 
are more secure in producing truly moral results. 

367 



They are then established by our well trained 
habit or by our conscious determination to live up 
to the most perfect image we have of our self ; and, 
not only have we attained to a higher stage of ethi- 
cal development than when our eyes are constant- 
ly turned to the social world about us, but also, 
as moral so-cial beings, as members of society, we 
shall be more perfect and more secure in our 
course of moral action. We shall thus strive to 
make both body and mind perfect in their form 
and in their function ; we shall endeavour to main- 
tain that supreme harmony of being which the 
ancient philosophers held up as the goal of man's 
efforts. But more than this, we shall establish 
the greatest security for our every act, and under 
all the most fluid and varying conditions of en- 
vironment, maintain the loftiness of our moral 
standards. This will not only guide us in choos- 
ing in life those occupations which are most likely 
to bring out the best that is in us, that which 
brings us nearest to the totality of our highest self, 
the ideal of our self; not only will it urge us to 
do our best work and to struggle against fate and 
untoward circumstance in overcoming opposition 
within and without; but it will securely confirm 
those social qualities which we must develop in 
the interest of a harmonious society. The habits 
we thus form, the self-control we thus impose up- 
on ourselves, the amenities we strive to cultivate 
to please our fellow men and to improve social 
intercourse, will have their perennial origin, jus- 
tification and vitalisation, within ourselves, and 
will not be affected by the uncertainty and mut- 
ability of fortuitous outer circumstances or de- 
pend upon confirmation from without. We shall 
be clean of body, clear of mind and delicate of 

368 



taste, not to please others or to win their approval, 
but because our own self would not be perfect 
without such effort and achievement. And we 
shall thus be furnished with an efficient guide, not 
only in the loftier and more spiritual spheres of 
our life and being, but even in the humblest and 
most commonplace and lowly action of our varied 
existence. To cultivate our habits of bodily clean- 
liness; to dress as appropriately and beautifully 
as we can in conformity with our position and 
activities; to eat and drink, not only in modera- 
tion, but in a manner expressive of refinement and 
repressive of greed and animal voracity—to do 
all this, even if we were placed on a desert island, 
isolated from all social intercourse, simply because 
we wish to uphold in ourselves the best standards 
of human civilisation and to make ourselves per- 
fect human beings, marks the highest, as well as 
the most efficient, phase of ethical culture. 

I cannot refrain from pointing out these truths 
by definite illustrations which in their very slight- 
ness will emphasise my meaning. I have been as- 
sured by a friend that, when he finds himself in a 
state of moral indisposition and depression, his 
cure is to retire from his companions, to work 
hard all day, and then in the evening to dress with 
the greatest care and punctiliousness, arrange his 
room as perfectly as possible with flowers be- 
decking the table, and after his evening meal to 
turn to beautiful books or beautiful thoughts. 
When as a boy he for the first time left his home, 
his wise mother begged him, as a personal favour, 
not to take even a hasty meal without washing; 
and, if others did not do it for him, that he should 
lay his own cloth, be it only with a napkin if he 
could not find a tablecloth. She rightly felt how 

369 



important it was to guard, as a spontaneous and 
vital habit of mind, the higher forms of •civilisa- 
tion and refinement. On the other hand, I have 
heard of a case where a man, brought up and ac- 
customed to civilised habits, was found in the 
backwoods of Canada, where he had lived as a 
lonely settler for some years, without even wash- 
ing the plates after meals because, as he put it, 
' ' the food all came from the same place and went 
to the same place." 

There is perhaps no phase of ethical teaching 
and discipline which requires more emphasis, de- 
velopment, and insistence, than the group of duties 
which ignore the social and directly altruistic as- 
pect, and deal with the duties to ourselves, making 
them ultimately, through conscious recognition, an 
efficient ethical habit. For it appears to me that 
our ethical vision has been distorted as regards 
true proportion, its correctness and soundness im- 
paired by the exclusive, or at all events exagger- 
ated, insisten-ee upon its moral, social and humani- 
tarian province. It has justified the strongest 
strictures and condemnation of professed amoral- 
ists like Nietzsche, their opposition to the prev- 
alent morality and the degeneracy to which so- 
called altruism must lead. At the same time such 
one-sided theories of so-cial altruism canont tend 
to sane happiness : they can only maintain such a 
state of artificial euphoria by feverish and con- 
tinuous activity, submerging all consciousness of 
self, in which we deceive or flatter ourselves into 
believing that we are doing good to others. And 
when we -cease to act and stop to think, we are 
thrown into a maze of restless querying as regards 
our own relation to our fellow men, which ends in 
depression or even in despair. We can only be 

370 



saved by following Matthew Arnold's command- 
ment to 

Eesolve to be thyself, and know that he 
Who finds himself loses his misery. 



371 






CHAPTER VI 
Duty to Things and Acts 

But we must at times go still further in repress- 
ing the human and personal intrusion. Not only 
beyond the social aspect of our duties, but even 
beyond our own personalities, must we realise our 
definite duties to things and our relation to our 
own acts. In this form of supreme self-repression 
and self-detachment for the time being, we must 
forget ourselves either in pure contemplation or 
in definite activity and productiveness. Pure con- 
templation finds its highest expression in science 
and in art. It constitutes man's theoretic faculty. 
To realise this faculty in spiritual and in intellec- 
tual activity makes of thought and emotion an ac- 
tivity in itself, and has led mankind to its high- 
est sphere of human achievement, namely the de- 
velopment of sciences and arts. But we are 
chiefly concerned in action and achievement itself 
as distinct from thought and pure emotion. Such 
action is likely to be the more sane and perfect 
and effective the more vigorous and concentrated 
it is in its enrgy, the more our will commands and 
directs our energies, as well as our passion and 
physical strength, to do the thing before us, and 
to forget ourselves in the doing of it. 'Whatever 
thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. ' 

Now, as there is an ideal of a human being, the 
ideal or type for animal and organic beings, in 
fact for all forms in nature, so there is a type and 
ideal for each definite act, the perfect act. This 

372 



is a necessary conclusion of the Platonic idea and 
of Aristotle's evreXxeia. The degree in which, 
while acting, we approach this ideal perfection of 
the act itself determines our triumph or failure, 
our satisfaction or discontent. The dissatisfac- 
tion and depression which we feel when we are 
not successful, the divine discontent out of which 
all great efforts and great achievements grow, 
produces in us a conscience, irrespective of our so- 
cial instincts, irrespective even of our own person- 
ality, and is, perhaps, of all our moral impulses 
the highest as it is the most effective. Besides 
this ethical bearing, it has the most supreme prac- 
tical bearing in life ; for only through it does man 
do his best, individually and collectively. All im- 
provements, inventions and discoveries, find their 
unassailable justification and their effective ori- 
gin in this principle of human activity. 

No doubt there are no new achievements, no 
discoveries or inventions, which, from the mere 
fact that being new they do not alter the existing 
state of things to which they are related, do not 
in their turn destroy what actually exists and af- 
fect adversely those who have depended upon the 
existing state of things. In so far they may pro- 
duce pain and want and misery and much may be 
urged against their right of existence from other 
points of \iew. But we must ever strive to pro- 
duce new inventions and new improvements, not 
so much to increase the fortunes of the discov- 
erers or promoters, not for the merchants, not 
even for the labouring populations to whom the 
exceptional control of such improvements or fa- 
cilities of production give an advantage over oth- 
ers; but because perfect production of objects, 
man's increased control over chance, over na- 

373 



ture, man's defiance of restricted time and space, 
are thereby improved. It is therefore immoral 
artifically to impede or to retard improvements or 
to lower the quantity or quality of production. 
To take a definite instance, which the individual 
artisan and the organised union of working men 
should remember : The bricklayer 's duty to do his 
best work as a bricklayer, to lay as many bricks 
and to lay them as perfectly as possible in as short 
a time as possible; not so much to increase the 
wealth of his employer (though this too is his 
duty and his definite compact), or his own wealth ; 
but because of the ideal of bricklaying, which 
must be the ideal of his active existence. The su- 
preme and final justification of his work is to be 
found in the work itself, irrespective even of hu- 
man beings, of human society, of humanity. 

But I feel bound to qualify what I have con- 
sidered from one aspect only, though in its abso- 
lute and unassailable truth, by not only admitting, 
but by urging the fact, that there are other du- 
ties with which man individually, and men collec- 
tively, have to deal ; though these in no way wea- 
ken the absoluteness of our ideals of impersonal 
work. We must consider, recognise, and be 
guided in our action, also by the incidental and 
temporary suffering frequently following in the 
wake of discoveries and inventions. It will there- 
fore devolve on society to alleviate and, if pos- 
sible, to remove such incidental suffering brought 
upon a limited group of individuals for the benefit 
of society and absolutely justified by the imper- 
sonal improvement of human work and produc- 
tion, Social legislation will here have to step in 
and to supplement insurance against old age, 
against disease, and even unavoidable unemploy- 

374 



ment, by insurance against acute and temporary 
forms of unemployment and dislocations of la- 
bour caused by such improvements and inven- 
tions. Such social legislation and the relief given 
to the unavoidable suffering of groups of people 
will be exceptional ; but it is moral and practically 
justifiable, if not imperative, on the ground that 
the community at large, and even future genera- 
tions, will benefit by the introduction of the im- 
provements which necessarily cause individual 
suffering. To give but one definite instance : The 
undoubted blessing which motor traffic has be- 
stowed upon mankind has necessarily brought 
suffering and misery to groups of people entirely 
dependent upon the superseded means of trans- 
port; while it has also caused discomfort to the 
mass of the population. It was but right that all 
efforts should have been made, on the one hand to 
support tlie cabmen and others who lived by horse 
traffic during the period when these new inven- 
tions forcibly deprived them of the very means of 
subsistence ; while, on the other hand, public ef- 
fort ought at once to have been directed towards 
securing the lives of pedestrians threatened by 
the new invention and the danger to health and 
comfort caused by the production of dust on the 
roads. 

But these separate duties, called into being by 
the improvement of production and the expansion 
of human skill and activity, in no way diminish 
the absolute duty to further such improvement 
and to concentrate energy which man must bring 
to the perfecting of his work as such. Our su- 
preme duty to things and to acts remains ; and we 
must act thus, not so much on grounds of human 
altruism, not as social beings in our direct rela- 

375 



tion to other beings and our intercourse with 
them; but simply in our relation to the objects 
which we are to produce, to modify, or to effect, 
to make our production as perfect as possible, 
even if we were the only human beings in the uni- 
verse. I may be allowed here to quote two di- 
dactic poems which illustrate this ethical princi- 
ple with forcible truth and with beauty of form. 
The one is Matthew Arnold's Self Dependence, 
from which I have already quoted above, the 
other is George Eliot 's poem Stradivarius. 

* * Self-Dependence ' ' 

Weary of myself, and sick of asking 
What I am, and what I ought to be. 
At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me 
Forwards forwards, o'er the starlit sea. 

And a look of passionate desire 

'er the sea and to the stars I send : 

Ye who from my childhood up have calm 'd me. 

Calm me, ah, compose me to the end ! 

**Ah, once more," I cried, **ye stars, ye waters, 
On my heart, your mighty charm renew ; 
Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you, 
Feel my soul becoming vast like you ! " 

From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of 

heaven. 
Over the lit sea's unquiet way. 
In the rustling night-air came the answer : 
**Wouldst thou he as these are? Live as they. 

' * Unaffrighted by the silence round them, 
Undistracted by the sights they see, 
These demand not that the things without them 
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy. 
376 



"And with joy the stars perform their shining, 
And the sea its long moon-silver 'd roll ; 
For self -poised they live, nor pine with noting 
All the fever of some differing soul. 

"Bounded by themselves, and unregardful 
In what state God's other works may be. 
In their own tasks all their powers pouring. 
These attain the mighty life you see." 

air-born voice ! long since, severely clear, 
A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear . 
"Resolve to be thyself; and know that he, 
Who finds himself, loses his misery!" 

' ' Stradivarius ' ' 

Antonio then: 
* * I like the gold — ^well, yes — but not for meals. 
And as my stomach, so my eye and hand, 
And inward sense that works along with both. 
Have hunger that can never feed on coin. 
Who draws a line and satisfies his soul, 
Making it crooked w^here it should be straight? 
An idiot with an oyster-shell may draw 
His lines along the sand, all wavering. 
Fixing no point or pathway to a point ; 
An idiot one remove may choose his line. 
Straggle and be content ; but God be praised, 
Antonio Stradivari has an eye 
That winces at false work and loves the true. 
With hand and arm that play upon the tool 
As willingly as any singing bird 
Sets him to sing his morning roundelay. 
Because he likes to sing and likes the song. ' ' 

Then Naldo : * ' 'Tis a petty kind of fame 
At best, that comes of making violinis; 
And saves no masses, either. Thou wilt go 
To purgatory none the less." 
377 



But he: 
^' 'Twere purgatory here to make them ill; 
And for my fame — when any master holds 
'Twixt chin and hand a violin of mine, 
He will be glad that Stradivari lived, 
Made violins, and made them of the best. 
The masters only know whose work is good : 
They will choose mine, and while God givex 

them skill 
I give them instruments to play upon, 
God choosing me to help Him. ' ' 

''What! were God 
At fault for violins, thou absent? 

''Yes; 
He were at fault for Stradivari's work." 

^'Why, many hold Guiseppe's violins 
As good as thine." 

' ' May be : they are different. 
His quality declines: he spoils his hand 
With over-drinking. But were his the best. 
He could not work for two. My work is mine, 
And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked 
I should rob God — since He is fullest good — 
Leaving a blank instead of violins. 
I say, not God Himself caii make man 's best 
Without best men to help Him. I am one best 
Here in Cremona, using sunlight well 
To fashion finest maple till it serves 
More cunningly than throats, for harmony. 
'Tis rare delight : I would not change my skill 
To be the Emperor with bungling hands. 
And lose my work, which comes as natural 
As self at waking." 

' ' Thou art little more 
Than a deft potter 's wheel, Antonio ; 
Turning out work by mere necessity 
And lack of varied function. Higher arts 
Subsist on freedom — eccentricity — 

378 



Uncounted inspirations — influence 
That comes with drinking, gambling, talk turn- 
ed wild. 
Then moody misery and lack of food — 
With every dithyrambic fine excess : 
These make at last a storm which flashes out 
In lightning revelations. Steady work 
Turns genius to a loom; the soul must lie 
Like grapes beneath the sun till ripeness comes 
And mellow vintage. I could paint you now 
The finest Crucifixion; yesternight 
Eetuming home I saw it on a sky 
Blue-black, thick-starred. I want two louis d 'ors 
To buy the canvas and the costly blues — 
Trust me a fortnight." 

"Where are those last two 
I lent thee for thy Judith? — her thou saw'st 
In saffron gown, with Holof ernes' head 
And beauty all complete?" 

'^She is but sketched: 
I lack the proper model — and the mood. 
A great idea is an eagle 's egg, 
Graves time for hatcliing; while the eagle sits 
Feed her." 

' ' If thou wilt call thy pictures eggs 
I call the hatching, Work. 'Tis God gives skill, 
But not without men's hands: He could not 

make 
Antonio Stradivari's violins 
Without Antonio. Get thee to thy easel." 

I end with another illustration from my "Cui 
Bono": 

li * * * jjave you nothing more to say about 
the use of science?" 

"I have, sir, but before I do I should like to 
repeat an interesting confession of one of my 
friends which will put the arguments in favour 

379 



of scientific pursuits in a more personal and di- 
rect manner. He is a colleague of mine, a dis- 
tinguished archaeologist, and teaches his subject 
at our university. Some time ago he made a 
striking discovery, one of a series he had made 
in his work. He had found in a foreign museum 
a marble head, which^ by means of his careful and 
systematic observation and comparison of works 
of ancient art, a method developed in his science 
in the most accurate manner by several gi'eat 
scholars, he at once recognised as belonging to 
a statute by Phidias in London. A cast of the 
head was made for him by the authorities of the 
foreign museum. He took it to London, and 
there, to his own delight and that of all people 
who love the masterpieces of Greek art, when he 
tried this head on the neck of the beautiful female 
figure, each fracture fitted exactly. The precious 
work of art from the age of Percles, of the art 
of Phidias, was now complete, after it had re- 
mained incomplete for centuries. 

* * When one day I was congratulating him upon 
this discovery, and saying to him, how happy 
must have been that moment, and how contented 
he must be with the successful pursuit of the 
vocation he had chosen in life, a discussion sim- 
ilar to the one we are now carrying on ensued, 
and in it he made to me the following confession 
as to the light in which at various moments his 
work appeared to him, and the varying degrees 
of moral justification which he then recognised 
as underlying his efforts. 

*' 'When I am quite well in body and mind,' 
he said, 'I work on with delight and vigour. It 
is pure joy : I never question the rightness and 
supreme necessity of my work at all. Nothing in 
this world appears to me of greater importance 
for me to work at, and I am almost convinced that 
the world could not get on without my work. Con- 

380 



viiiced is not the right word : for I do not think 
about this general question at all. But at the 
bottom of this joyous expenditure of creative en- 
ergy, lies this conviction, and all the justifications 
which I must now enumerate. For, as my moral 
or physical health sinks, one of them after the 
other drops off, until I am left with but the feeble 
support of the last lame excuse for exertion with 
which I limp or crawl through my deep dejection 
and melancholy. 

" 'With the first disturbance of moral or phy- 
sical sanity, I begin to doubt and query. It is 
the first stage of the disease; but I am still full 
of high and sound spirits. Besides all the others, 
I feel one supreme motive to action, which is of 
the highest religious order, so high, that but few 
peoiple will be able to understand it, and still 
fewer can sympathise with it and be moved by it. 

" ' I look upon my individual work and creation 
as part of the great universe, even beyond hu- 
manity. I even transcend the merely human or 
social basis of ethics, and I feel myself in com- 
munion with the world in all its infinite vastness. 

" 'I know this sounds like mysticism, but I as- 
sure you it is both clear and real to me. I then 
feel that if there were in this world no single 
human being to love or care for, instruct or 
amuse, my work would still be necessary, in view 
of the great harmony of things, to which right 
actions, truth discovered, and beauty formed, con- 
tribute, as their contraries detract from it. 

'' 'Were there no single person living,' he con- 
tinued, with growing warmth of enthusiasm, 'it 
would be right, nay necessary, for me to discover 
that head in the foreign musemn. That head lay 
'pining' there in the foreign museum for years 
and for centuries under the earth before it was 
excavated, until / came, and by the knowledge I 
possessed (which means the accumulated effort 

381 



of many learned men establishing the method, as. 
well as my years of preparation and education in 
acquiring it and making it my own), by this 
science of mine, I joined it to that torsoi, that im- 
perfect fragment of a thing, and made it whole — 
a living work of art fashioned by the master gen- 
ius, whose existence two thousand years ago be- 
came part of the world's richness for all time. 
So long as that head and that torso remained 
separate, there was discord and not harmony in 
the world's great Symphony, the world was so 
much the poorer, so much the less beautiful and 
good. I made the world richer by my act, more 
harmonious, m'ore beautiful; and thus, without 
self-love or even love of man, I proved my love 
of God. That is the Amor Dei. Then we are 
enthusiastic in the Greek sense of the word, we 
are full of God. 

* * ' In the next stage, when my spirits flag some- 
what, and reflection and then doubt begin to come 
over me, I cannot feel moved by this widest and 
grandest assurance of the bearings of my science. 
But, in addition to the lower justifications, I then 
quiet my doubts by the feeling that my work and 
my teaching are one element in the establishment, 
increase, and spread of what we call civilisation, 
culture, and general education. Human life be- 
comes more elevated and refined by the sum of 
our efforts. Without good archaeologists, and 
the consequent of the past, our civilisation would 
not be as perfect as it is. 

** 'Then, when I sink still lower, and can no 
longer feel this more general conception of hu- 
man life, I can still feel that the effect upon those 
for whom I write and those Avhom I teach will be 
refining, and will bring true Hellenism (not the 
pseudo-Hellenism of morally-degenerate sciolists), 
nearer to them; and also that I increase their 



382 



capital of refined intellectual enjoyment, their in- 
tellectual resources and their taste. 

''And when I am lowest of all, I say to myself 
that I am making good professional archaeolo- 
gists and curators of museums, am training good 
schoolmasters for our public schools, and am at 
least helping these young men to a profession, 
giving them the means of earning a living. 

'' 'When I have arrived at that stage of dejec- 
tion and lowness of spirits, I jog on in a ''from 
hand to mouth" existence; but I feel that the 
sooner I can get a good holiday and some rest, 
the better it will be for me.' " 



H8:^ 



CHAPTER VII 

Duty to God 

The duty to things and actions, necessarily and 
logically lead us to the further and final course 
to which, in the rising scale of ethical thought, 
they tend. In man's ethical profession, through 
the objects which man wishes to produce or to 
modify in nature, he is necessarily led to his ul- 
timate duties towards the world as a whole, not 
only the world as his senses and perceptions cause 
him to realise it, as it is, with all the limitations 
which his senses and powers of action impose upon 
him; but the world as his best thought, and his 
imagination, guided by Ms highest reason, lead 
him to feel that it ought to he — his ideal world. 
This brings him to his duty towards his highest 
and most impersonal ideals of an ordered imi- 
verse, a cosmos, and of unlimited powers beyond 
the limitations of his capacities — his duty to God. 
Ethics here naturally, logically, necessarily, lead 
to, and culminate in, religion. 

The supreme duty in this final phase of ethics, 
man's religious duties, is Truth to his Religious 
Ideals. It is here, more than in any other phase 
of his activities, that there can and ought to be no 
compromise. This is where he approaches the 
ideal world in all its purity, free from all limi- 
tations and modifications by the imperfections of 
things temporal and material as well as his own 
erring senses and perceptive faculties. There 
are no practical or social relationships, no ma- 
terial ends to be considered, no material interests 

384 



to be served or advantages gained. The only re- 
lationship is that between himself and his spir- 
itual powers and the highest ideal which these en- 
able him to formulate or to feel. His duty there- 
fore is to strive after his highest ideals of har- 
mony, power, truth, justice and charity. Nor does 
this function of the human mind and this craving 
of the human heart require exceptional intellee- 
tual power or training. On the contrary, the his- 
tory of the human race has shown that at every, 
phase of human existence, even the earliest and 
most rudimentary in the very remote haze of pre- 
historic times, the presence of this religious in- 
stinct and man's effort to satisfy it are mani- 
fested ; even though it necessarily be in the crud- 
est, the most unintelligent and even barbarous 
forms of what we call superstition and idolatry. 

Man's every desire, and every experience neces- 
sarily have a religious concomitant. At everj^ 
moment of his conscious existence he is reminded 
of imperfection and limitation without, and inca- 
pacity within himself. This very consciousness is 
the mainspring of all endeavour, of all will power, 
of all the exertion of his physical or mental ca- 
pacities. For, each conscious experience, as well 
as each desire and effort, has as a counterpart to 
its limitation, the more or less present or complete 
consciousness of its perfect fulfilment. Limita- 
tion in time and space implies infinity; limita- 
tion in power implies omnipotence ; limitation in 
knowledge implies omniscience ; injustice, justice ; 
cruelty, charity. Even if the limitation or the 
incapacity is admitted, and even if the tutored 
mind ceases from dwelling upon it as it realizes 
the impossibility clearly to grasp and to encom- 
pass the unlimited and relegates such fantastic 

385 



cravings to the region of the absurd, through long 
and continuous rationalistic training and habit, 
this only confirms the correlative conception of in- 
iinite power. The consciousness that we cannot 
span the world, regulate the powers of nature ac- 
cording to our will, dominate the seasons and 
check the course of the tides — not to mention the 
limitations of every individual and commonplace 
action of ours — implies our conception of such 
power and such complete achievement. 

The higher our spiritual flight and the more 
highly trained we are through experience and 
through thought in the range of our imagination 
and our reason, the higher will be our ideals of 
the infinite and the omnipotent. The Greek phil- 
osopher Xenophanes said many centuries ago, 
that, if lions could draw, they would draw the 
most perfect lions as their god, and that the god 
of negroes would be flat-nosed and black. Thus 
necessarily individuals, the collective groups of 
men and the different periods within man's his- 
tory will all vary in their capacity to approach the 
conception of the highest ideals; they will differ 
in their theology and in their religion. 

But their supreme duty from an ethical point 
of view, in their attitude towards religion is truth. 
They must strive so to develop their religious na- 
ture that it responds to their highest moral and 
intellectual capacity. They must not accept any 
rel;gJous ideal that contradicts the rising scale of 
duties from the lower and narrower spheres up- 
wards as we have enumerated them. All duties 
must harmonise and culminate in the ultimate 
ideals which belong to the religious sphere. 
Credo quia impossible must never mean Credo 
quia ahsurdum. Man commits a grave sin, per- 

386 



haps the gravest of all, by lowering his religious 
ideals, by allowing himself, on whatever grounds 
of expediency and compromise, to vitiate the di- 
vine reason he possesses as the highest gift in 
human nature, and by admitting the irrational 
into his conception of the divinity. 

By this I in no way mean to say that either eth- 
ics, science or art can in any way replace religion : 
though in their highest ideal flights they closely 
approach to religion and even merge into it. Of 
all human activities in science, pure mathematics, 
which deals with the highest immaterial relation- 
ships, comes nearest to the ideal sphere of the- 
ology and indicates the direction for religious 
emotion to take ; and of all the arts, pure music 
(not program music) unfettered by definite ma- 
terial objects and individual experiences in the 
outer world, also approaches most closely in its 
tendency to some realisation of cosmical and re- 
ligious ideals. We can thus divine the depth of 
effort manifested in the philosophy of Pythago- 
ras, who maintained that number was the essence 
of all things, and who suggested the music of the 
spheres. But these are only sign-posts on the 
high road of thought where science and art give 
lasting expression to the onward and upward 
course of human reason; they cannot of them- 
selves satisfy the religious instinct and the religi- 
ous craving of man which draws him onwards to 
his highest ideals. 

If science and art cannot thus replace religion, 
ethics which is directly and immediately practical 
can also not do so. In fact ethics must culminate 
in religious ideals. Man's duty towards the per- 
fection of his acts, to the universe at large, as we 
have endeavoured to indicate it above, logically 

387 



leads us to and in itself presupposes and pre-de- 
mands some conception of a final, summary harm- 
ony to which all human activity tends. All our 
rational and moral activity pre-demands the cons- 
ciousness of a final end, not in chaos but in cos- 
mos; not irrational but rational; not evil but 
good; not towards the evil one but towards God. 
Without this infinite boundary to all our thoughts 
and actions, desires and efforts, man's conscious 
world would not differ from a madhouse or a 
gambler's den, or a vast haunt of vice and crimi- 
nality. Without this upward idealistic impulse all 
conscious human activity would either go down- 
ward to lower animal spheres (to Nirvana) or er- 
ratically whirl round and round in drunken 
mazes ; it would lose all guidance and ultimate di- 
rection and be purely at the mercy of fickle chance 
or relentless passion and greed. 

But this upward idealistic impulse itself, as a 
lasting and dominating emotion must be culti- 
vated. Just as we have seen before, ethics must 
become emotional and aesthetic to be practically 
effective. We have also seen that each ethical in- 
junction need not be, and ought not to be cons- 
ciously present in the mind of him who is to act 
rightly; for it would weaken, if not completely 
dissolve, our will-power and our active energy. 
It would ultimately lead to the dreamer or the 
pedant who dreams while he ought to be awake 
and who idly thinks while he ought to act. The 
step must be made from the intellectual to the 
emotional sphere; the moral injunction ought to 
be made part of our emotional system through 
habituation — it must become subconscious, almost 
instinctive, if not purely aesthetic — a matter of 
taste. Rational and efficient education must from 

. 388 



our earliest infancy tend to convert this conscious 
morality into a sub-conscious and fundamental 
moral state. We must not rest on our oars to 
think while we ought to be rowing and risk being 
carried away by the unreasoning current of cir- 
cumstance. 

Still there will be moments when we must thus 
rest on our oars, when we must set the house in 
which we live in order, when we must ponder over 
and test the broad principles upon which we act. 
We must then bring into harmony and proportion 
the ascending scale of duties, regulating the lower 
by the higher in due subordination and discard- 
ing the lower that will not bear the final test of 
the higher, until we reach the crown of human ex- 
istence in our religious ideals. 

But in all this idealistic ascent we must culti- 
vate the passion for such upsoaring idealism, and 
it is in our final religious impulses that the emo- 
tional, nay the mystical, element must itself be 
nurtured and cultivated. Without this crown of 
life, life will always be imperfect. The striving 
for the infinite, which cannot be apprehended and 
reduced to intellectual formulae, must itself be 
strengthened and encouraged in the young and 
through every phase of our life onward to the 
grave. Let us see that these ideals are not op- 
posed to our highest reason and truth as far as 
we have been able to cultivate these in ourselves. 
But whether our ultimate intellectual achieve- 
ment and our grasp of truth be high or low, we 
cannot forego the cultivation and strengthening 
of our religious emotions. Whoever believes in 
the dogmatic teaching of any of the innumerable 
sects and creeds that now exist, truthfully and 
with the depth of his conviction, let him cling to 

389 



that creed and the usages, rites and ceremonies 
of the church or chapel, synagogiie, mosque, 
graves, or sacred shrines and haunts in which his 
religious emotions are fed and strengthened. But 
if he does not truthfully believe in the creed and 
dogmas, he must not subscribe to them, or he will 
be committing the supreme sin against his best 
self, "against the Holy Ghost." Those whose re- 
ligious ideals cannot be compassed, or fettered 
by any dogmatic creed that is now established and 
recognised, let them not forego the cultivation of 
their religious emotions which, as both past ex- 
perience and all active reasoning teach us, must 
be created and strengthened by emotional setting, 
by an atmosphere removed from the absorbing in- 
terested activities of daily life. 

The question for these people is, where and how 
can religious emotion thus be encouraged and cul- 
tivated? It seems to me that there are two pos- 
sible localities and methods in which this crying 
demand can be responded to: either in the do- 
mestic sphere within the family, or within the 
churches themselves, amid the religious associa- 
tions of the past and the religious atmosphere 
which is essential to them. 

As regards the home and the family as the 
centre for religious worship, some indication of 
the direction which such a domestic religious cult 
might take can be derived from Japanese ances- 
tor-worship which is so vital and so potent an 
element in the life of that people. As has been 
pointed out by Nobushige Hozumi,^ Japanese 
ancestor worship can co-exist with any variety of 
religious beliefs, doctrines and creeds. For us 



(1) "Anceator-worship and Japanese Law." 1913. 

300 



it has in its turn become sterotyped in its formal 
ritual to such a degree, that it could never be ac- 
cepted in its actual form by those wlio brought 
unbiased criticism to bear upon its binding in- 
jmictions. But the essential fact in its ritual, that 
it establishes within each family and each house- 
hold a sacred chamber or alter, of itself sanctified 
by piety and gratitude towards our ancestors and 
thus effectively upholding the family spirit and 
the family honour, with common strivings to- 
wards higher moral and ideal ends ; furthermore, 
that it becomes the natural focus for solemn gath- 
erings and lends spiritual elevation by association 
and emotional stimulus to the silent prayer of 
the individual or the collective worship of the 
whole family — these elements make of it the fit 
local and physical setting for religious commun- 
ion or for silent self-communion or prayer when 
the individual man desires to establish his solemn 
relationship with his highest ideals. 

Beyond this domestic and family sphere, how- 
ever, we possess in every country the churches 
and shrines associated with definite beliefs in the 
present and with continuous religious aspirations 
for centuries in the past. Not only these associa- 
tions, but the aesthetic qualities in the architec- 
ture and decorative art within and without, pos- 
sessed by so many, make them the most suitable 
places for man's spiritual devotion. If the guar- 
dians of these sacred buildings admit, as they 
must, that religious aspirations and desires are 
in themselves good ; that it is better for those who 
differ from them in creed to have some religion 
and that they should cultivate their religious as- 
pirations rather than that they should have no re- 
ligion at all and drift through life without any 

391 



such higher striving, they will surely lend a hand 
to support their brethern in their highest efforts, 
even if they differ from them in form and creed. 
Let us hope that all our churches and religious 
buildings will at certain definite times, when not 
required for the special worship to which they are 
dedicated, open their doors to the differing breth- 
ern. These buildings ought in the future, even 
more than at present, to become the centres of 
purest art, graphic or musical. These fellow 
strivers may then receive the inestimable benefit 
of some stimulation in their endeavours silently to 
commune with their highest ideals, to pray, to 
think or to feel, and to cultivate their truly re- 
ligious spiritual emotion. 

Epilogue 

At the end of this attempt to put into logical 
and intelligible form an outline scheme for the 
moral regeneration of our own times and of the 
Western civilised nations, a regeneration which 
of itself would make a war, like the one from 
which the whole of civilised humanity is now suf- 
fering, impossible in the future, I must ask my- 
self whether any good can come from such an ef- 
fort, whether the mere exposition of truths, and 
even the realisation and admission of these truths 
on the part of those who read what I have written, 
will in any way alter the course of events or the 
lives of the millions of people who cause these 
events to take place as they do? Is Nietzsche, 
and are many other philosophers, right in main- 
taining that the mass of the people, do not like 
what they consider superior to themselves and to 
the general standard of life about them, that they 

392 



ar« in reality opposed to their leaders and inimi- 
cal to what they consider above average exis- 
tence? Even if — ^which is doubtful — what I have 
here written should reach the eyes of the people 
who rule by their numbers and if I were able to 
convince them of the rightness of what is here 
put before them, would such an achievement in the 
slightest way modify the course of individual or 
collective action? A man must be very young or 
very arrogant who believes, that even the most 
unassailable truths to which he is able to give ex- 
pression will of themselves influence the great 
current of human passion and human action. 

On the other hand, man's history in the past 
has proved one truth above all others; namely, 
that only ideas last, and that truth must prevail 
in the end. Moreover, it has proved that the great 
thinkers of by gone days have set their stamp and 
seal upon their own age and especially upon the 
ages that have followed them. In the immediate 
past, the past that has led up to the present day, 
in the disasters of which we are all so sadly con- 
cerned, we can recognise and those who have stud- 
ied the question must admit it — that the Germany 
of the generation preceding the present one was 
fashioned in its character, in its ideals, in its col- 
lective, and in its individual national life, by the 
expressed thoughts, the words and the writings of 
such disciples of truth as were Kent Fichte, Schell- 
ing and Hegel. The Germany — not Prussia — of 
the generation preceding 1870 was made what it 
was by the thought of such men, filtering through 
the studens of their philosophy down to even the 
■unthinking and illiterate masses of the people. 
Since then, since 1870, not only Bismark and 
Moltke and the present Kaiser are responsible for 

393 



the Germany that is ; but, perhaps even more than 
these, Treitschke and even Schopenhauer, von 
Hartmann and Nietzsche, have created the funda- 
mental and ultimate and still the most pervasive 
and efficient mentality of the young Germany of 
today. If this be true, and if there be virtue and 
in what I have written in this book, there may be 
some hope that I have not worked in vain, and 
that some good, though it fall far short of the 
hopes that have stirred me to make this effort, 
may come out of what I have done. In any case 
I may be allowed to say to myself: 
Dixi et animam meam salvavL 



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